PS 1059 
.B86 T5 
1899 



S 







Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/tistoryofsanfran01bamf 



TI: 



A STORY OF SAN FRANCISCO'S CHINATOWN 




By MARY E. BAMFORD. 



CHICAGO: 
David C. Cook Publishing Company, 

36 WASHINGTON STREET. 




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Copyright, 1899, 
By David C. Cook Publishing Company. 




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ti: 



A STORY OF SAN FRANCISCO'S CHINATOWN. 




CHAPTEE I. 



THE "NEW WORDS.' 



; T WAS low tide. Ti sat on a 
board at the end of the net- 
drying platform, and looked 
5n5u~ out beyond the mud flats of the 
bay. He could see his father's 
junk far on the water. The junk had 




been away down the bay to San Francisco, 
and now was coming back, bringing a 
load of salt to be used in curing shrimps. 
Thousands of shrimps were caught and 
dried every year at this isolated California 
Chinese fishing-village where Ti lived. 



There were large plank floors on which 
the shrimps were dried. Tons of shrimps 
were shipped across the ocean to China 
yearly. 

His uncle, Lum Lee, hurried past to get 
some wood to be used as fuel in some of 
the processes of curing shrimps. As he 
ran by, he looked at Ti and observed that 
if the boy should fall off the board at the- 
end of the net-drying platform, he would 
land in the mud-flat underneath. 

" Do not fall," he called out in Chinese, 
as he ran. 

But Ti felt entirely above such ad- 
vice. Of course he could hold on! 
But what he could not do was to hurry 
the coming in of the tide, so that his 
father could bring the junk to the wharf. 
Ti particularly wanted the junk to hurry, 
because, when going away, his father had 
said that he would bring something from 
the great city for a present to his boy. 
And now, when the junk was returning 
and fairly in sight of the fishing-camp, 
the water near the shore line of the bay 
must go out and leave nothing but mud- 
flats! What junk could sail on a mud- 
flat? Ti did wish that the water would 
hurry coming in, so he could get his 
present ! 

What would it be? Would it be a toy 



4 TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

balloon, such as the American children intelligible to American as well as Chinese 
had sometimes? Or would it be some ears. Uncle Lum Lee had long since dis- 



rice cakes? Perhaps it 
would be a fish-bladder 
covered with feathers, 
for him to use in playing 
"tack yin." Or maybe 
it would be candy! 

Ti clasped his little 
yellow hands ecstatically 
across his "'shorn,," as the 
Chinese call the blouse. 

But it does not do to 
clasp one's hands too 
suddenly when one is 
sitting on the end of a 
board in the air! Ti lost 
his balance, screamed, 
caught at the board, and 
fell over, down into the 
mud below! Oh, it was 
dreadful! His thick- 
soled shoes and blue 
trousers disappeared in 
the mud! The ends of 
his "shorn" spread out 
over the mud, and he 




Do not fall," called Uncle Lum Lee. 



appeared, but See Yow 
heard — old See Yow, 
who was going through 
the encampment to one 
of the buildings that had 
a shrine, such as a joss- 
house has. He was in- 
tending to put some in- 
cense sticks before the 
shrine, for he knew the 
proverb of his people, 
" In passing over the day 
in the usual way there 
are four ounces of sin." 
Yet his idea of " sin " 
was very different from 
the Christian idea. When 
he heard the scream he 
did not wait to go to the 
shrine, but hurriedly 
called to others near. 
There was a loud chat- 
tering, and at last little 
Ti was scooped out of 
the mud, as if he were a 



screamed a scream that would have been new and valuable variety of clam. He 




Chinese Fishing Hamlet. 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



left one thick-soled shoe buried far out of 
sight, and he was borne away by old See 
Yow to be cleaned up again. 

While he scraped and comforted, the 
old man told Ti how convenient it would 
have been to-day, if he had been one of 
the feathered people, for then he could 
have flown, when he found himself drop- 
ping into the mud. See Yow really be- 
lieved that there are feathered people 
somewhere in the world, for he had been 
taught so, when he was a boy long ago, 
by a man from Swatow in China. 

" The feathered people are gentle, and 
they are covered with fluffy down, and 
have wings/' said See Yow, "and they 
sing." 

Ti listened and watched the scraping 
off of his shoe. 

The old man kept on talking about the 
feathered people. " If one wishes to 
visit that nation, he must go far to the 
southeast and then inquire/' he finished, 
in the words of the tale as he had learned 
them. 

By this time Ti was quite as clean as 
he could be made in so short a time. See 
Yow was always a kind, lovable old man. 

" When the junk comes in, I will give 
you a piece of the present my father 
brings me," said Ti gratefully. 

Old See Yow smiled. " May the Five 
Blessings come upon you!" he answered 
affectionately. " Surely you were a child 
that neither learned to walk nor speak 
early nor had teeth early!" 

Now as certain Chinese believe that a 



child who does these things early has a 
bad disposition and will grow up unlov- 
able, what See Yow said was very compli- 
mentary. And as the Chinese "Five 
Blessings" are health, riches, long life, 




Old See Yow. 

love of virtue, and a natural death, the 
old man wished the best things he knew 
for Ti. But to himself he smiled at little 
Ti's promise about the present, and 
thought, " Some presents will not bear 
dividing! It is but a child's promise. I 
shall have nothing." 

But little Ti meant what he promised. 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



Jle would certainly give a piece of his 
present to kind old See Yow. 

The little boy stayed with the shrimp- 
curers till the slow waters of the bay 
climbed again over the mud-flats toward 
the fishing-hamlet. Then the men on 
the junk out in the bay hoisted sail, and 
slowly the junk came toward the shore. 
But about three hundred yards from the 
shore, it ran aground in the mud. Small 
boats began to ply between the junk and 
the shore, however, and on one of these 
boats came Ti's father. He had not left 
Ti's present on board the junk with the 
load of salt, either. The present was in- 
side of the father's blouse. 

How Ti gazed, as his father fumbled in 
his blouse and brought out his present! 
It was a pair of bright, pink, American 
stockings! Oh, they were so bright and 
pink and pretty! The boy was delighted. 
He had never had anything but common 
white stockings to show above his low, 
thick-soled shoes before. The new pink 
stockings were clocked with silk up their 
sides, and to little Ti they seemed very 
beautiful. 

He smiled with happiness, for Chinese 
small people when " dressed up " like to 
wear pretty colors. Then suddenly he 
remembered something. Had he not 
said he would divide his present — what- 
ever it should be — with old See Yow? 
The little lad's smile vanished. Must he 
give away half of his beautiful new pink 
pair of stockings? What good was half 
a fair of stockings? 



But the boy's father was still fumbling 
in his blouse, and a moment later he 
brought out some Chinese candy. Put- 
ting this into Ti's hands, he brought out 
something else. 

" I saw the teacher woman in the city/' 
he told in Chinese, and she said, ' Here is 
something for little Ti! Tell him to 
fasten it up by a street door, so that all 
the fishing-people will see it!'" 

But the father frowned a little, as he 
said this, though he handed Ti the 
teacher's gift, which was a piece of red 
paper on which were some Chinese words 
in black characters. Ti's father did not 
like the city teacher woman very well, yet 
he had brought the paper safely because 
he thought that the little boy might like 
its red color. The words on the red 
paper seemed strange to him. He did 
not know what they meant. 

" I will give this red paper to See 
Yow," resolved Ti, taking the paper. 
" Then I shall not have to give him one 
of my pink stockings! He may have 
some of my candy, too." 

He ran away to find See Yow. The 
kind old man admired the pink stockings, 
refused the candy, but took the red paper. 
He tried to read what was printed on it 
in Chinese characters, but he did not un- 
derstand. He puzzled over it quite a 
while. 

Ti stood by, watching. " What does it 
say?" he asked. 

" They are new words," answered old 
See Yow. 



TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 



He read them aloud slowly: " ' Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest/ " 

Ti did not know what they meant. The 
teacher woman in the great California 
city where he used to live several years 
ago had spoken to him once about Christ, 
but he was a very little fellow then, and 
now he did not remember much she had 
said. So he could not help See Yow to 
understand the words on the red paper. 

" The teacher woman said to put the 
paper up by a door where everybody can 
see," stated Ti in Chinese. 

So See Yow held the red paper and 
went along slowly to the hut where he 
and some other Chinamen lived. Above 
and beside the outside of the door were 
already pasted red or yellow papers with 
inscriptions that said various things in 
Chinese. One paper said: "May we 
never be without wisdom." Another 
paper read, " Good hope," and another, 
" Good will come to us," and another, 
"May heaven give happiness." 

But none of them held any such words 
as the teacher woman's red paper that 
See Yow's wrinkled old hands pasted now 
among the other inscriptions. 

Back and forth through the narrow, 
dirty little street that ran through the 
hamlet went the Chinese men and women 
and children. They were all so busy with 
the shrimp-curing and the fish-drying 
and the household work that they hardly 
looked at See Yow's red paper. Once in 
a while a man stopped to look, but he did 



not know what the words meant. Some 
of the Chinamen who had once lived 
down in the city had heard of the Ameri- 
cans' Christ, but had not paid much at- 
tention. Many of the Chinese had lived 
in different fishing-villages for years, and 
had never had any one to teach them of 
Christ. See Yow had lived in California 
many years. He had wandered around 
through Chinese mining-camps and fish- 
ing-villages, but in the mining-camps 
there was no teaching of Chinese about 
Christ, and after all these years in a 
Christian land, the poor old man was in as 
dense ignorance of Christianity as when 
he came from his native land. This 
whole fishing-camp where he now lived 
knew little more of Christ than if it had 
been in China. 

After seeing the paper pasted up by 
the door, Ti had run off with his own 
precious pink stockings. But old See 
Yow stood still and looked awhile at the 
red paper, and tried to think what the 
words meant. At last he shook his head 
slowly, saying as he turned away: 

" They are new words. They are new 
words!" 

Yet there those words of eighteen cen- 
turies stood on See Yow's shabby old out- 
ward wall, and hither and thither went 
the ignorant, hard-working Chinese peo- 
ple, who did not know the meaning of 
them. 





TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN 
CHAPTEK II. 

THE CALL. FOR " CHOCK CHEE." 

HERE was great excitement 

in the fishing - hamlet. 

There were six white men 

— yes, six — who had come 

to the hamlet, and no one 
knew wherefore! 

Outwardly the Chinese were busy 
about their usual work, but inwardly 
they thought of little except the six 
white visitors and their errand. White 
men seldom came here, for there was 
no direct communication between the 
isolated hamlet and the city save by the 
Chinese junk's irregular trips. But the 
six white men had come in another vessel, 
now waiting in the bay. Some thought 
they had come to collect poll tax. 

" I have paid poll tax many times," 
said Kim Tong in Chinese. 

" Perhaps they have come to hunt for 
some bad Chinaman, to put him in jail," 
suggested Lin Tan. 

The six white men walked around, ap- 
parently noting how many Chinamen 
there were in the camp, and what their 
occupations were. They looked at those 
who were splitting wood, and thoec who 
were mending nets, and those who were 
doing cooking, and those who were 
grinding shrimp shells and mixing them 
with sawdust. Great quantities of these 
ground shells and sawdust were sent to 
China, there to be used as a fertilizer of 
land. The six strangers looked at some 




TI: A STOHY OF CHINATOWN. 9 

About a hundred such from getting the Chinamen all together, 



of the large nets 
nets belonged to the fishing hamlet. Two 
or three Chinamen were making mat- 
tresses of red and white cloth, and the 
white men looked at these workers. 

Xone of the dwellers in the little ham- 
let seemed outwardly to object to the 
white men's seeing all they wished to see. 
The Chinese were peaceful, but they did 
have a desire to know what was coming. 
They knew this unexpected visit meant 
something. 

The white men peered into various lit- 
tle buildings, and saw in two or three of 
them such shrines as the Chinese erect for 
joss-worship. 

u Religion isn't entirely neglected 
here!" said one of the visitors to another, 
laughingly. 

"You'll find joss-shrines anywhere 
where you find Chinese living, I guess," 
answered the other. 

They had gone around near the wharf 
again. 

" It's an opportune time for us to come 
on our business," said a third white man, 
looking at the Chinese junk next the 
wharf. " Even their junk isn't out in the 
bay." 

" It wouldn't be so much matter, if it 
were out there," said another. " These 
Chinese have a regular system of signals. 
They run up red and green and white 
flags on the flag-pole over that house yon- 
der, and they could signal a junk to come 
in from the bay back to this place, if 
necessary. So it wouldn't hinder us 



unless the junk was too far out to see the 
signals. But probably all are here who 




"Why have these men come?" said one Chinaman. 

live here, now. We'd better begin pretty 
soon." 

The men then went a little farther and 
gazed at the Chinamen who were attend- 
ing to fish. Before the very faces of the 
white men the Chinese kept on talking 
together about why these visitors had 
come. They felt safe in talking their 
own language. They did not know that 



10 



TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 



some of these men understood Chinese 
and knew what was being said about 
them. 

" Why have these men come?" said one 
Chinaman. " Perhaps they will survey 
the shore for some purpose. Do they 
think they can take away our fishing- 
village?" 

Finally, when the visitors had walked 
around the camp and had satisfied them- 
selves that all the men usually employed 
were there, one of them went to the Chi- 
nese "boss" of the fishing-hamlet and 
told him to call all the men together. 

" Chock chee," demanded the white 
man; and immediately the camp was 
astir, for " chock chee " meant the cer- 
tificate a Chinaman must have to show 
that he had been legally admitted to this 
country. 

Little Ti stood and looked at the com- 
motion that ensued. Some of the Chi- 
nese hurried to their bunks and brought 
back their certificates. Others were very 
cross at having to stop their work, and 
would not go and get " chock chee " till 
command after command had been given. 

"You all come here," said one white 
man in Chinese; and the Chinamen gath- 
ered in a group. 

Then the six men began carefully to 
examine the certificates and compare the 
photograph on each with the Chinaman 
who presented it. As fast as the men 
and the certificates were looked at, the 
Chinese were told to stand aside, so that 
by and by there were two groups of 



Chinamen. The white men were care- 
fully looking for fraudulent certificates. 

Ti watched, for he was somewhat 
alarmed by something he heard one of the 
Chinamen say — that the men had 
brought a genuine " chock chee " with 
them, so as to have a standard by which 
they might detect any forged certificates; 
and though the white men had not come 
to find a real criminal, but only to dis- 
cover anybody who had violated the law 
of " chock chee," yet they were so careful 
in comparing the genuine certificate 
with those shown by the Chinamen, that 
there was an impression made among the 
suspicious, waiting Chinese that perhaps, 
after all, there had been a murder com- 
mitted by a Chinaman somewhere in the 
State, and these men were looking for the 
murderer. 

Ti heard the Chinese about him mur- 
muring various conjectures as to whom 
had been killed and where it had oc- 
curred. There were so many surmises 
that he felt frightened. He knew his 
father would have to come before those 
six men very soon, and he did not know 
what the men might do to him. 

The little fellow grew so scared that he 
wanted to run away and hide himself in 
the building that was used as a sail loft 
and a place for storing the ropes and 
tackle belonging to the junk and other 
boats. But he stayed, because he watched 
for his father's turn to come before the 
white men. He knew that some of the 
Chinamen were out of temper. One of 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

them had even kicked over a little dwarf certificates 
pine that sat in a dish by his hut. But 
there was no use in being cross when the 
call was for " chock chee." 

Ti knew from his father's looks that 
something was the matter. Uncle Lum 
Lee was safe. He had his certificate. 

"When it came his father's turn to go 
before the six white men, Ti tried to see 
between two old Chinamen. He thrust 
his little queued head under the Chinas 
man's arm and looked. Before the white 
men stood his father, talking briskly in 
English of his own. 

" ITe leave e chock chee ' in city," he 
said. " Him velly good number one 
' chock chee!' Xo have him here. Leave 
him with my cousin in city." 

" Very well," answered one of the 
men. " Then I arrest you. I will take 
you down to the city, and you may find 
6 chock chee ' there. and show me. Stand 
here." 

Ti's father did not object at all. He 
had known, as soon as he heard the white 
men's errand, that he would have to go 
back to the city with them. Such a visit 
as this was very unexpected, and Ti's 
father told himself that he would always 
keep his " chock chee " within reaching 
distance hereafter. 

Three other men were in the same pre- 
dicament. Little Ti hardly understood. 
He knew that L T ncle Lum Lee looked dis- 
gusted with his father. 

When the examination was over, Ti's 
father, and the three other men whose 



were missing, went 



11 

and 



changed their clothes from fishing gar- 
ments to others more appropriate for a 
visit to the city. The other Chinamen 
went back to their work, but these four 




A Dwarf Pine. 

came to the men on the net - drying 
platform. 

" You all sure you got e chock chee ' in 
city?" asked one of the men. 

" Yes," answered the four Chinamen. 

They had thought the city a safer place 
to keep their certificates than here in the 
fishing-hamlet. They looked to see what 
their captors were going to do. The men 
began talking among themselves, and the 
Chinamen waited. During the long time 
that it had taken to carefully examine 
each one's " chock chee," the tide had 



12 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



gone out, and the white men would be 
forced to wait for its return, before they 
could start for the city. 

" Tide's out. Got to wait," explained 
one of the men to the Chinese. 




"Will they kill him?" Ti asked. 

The four captives acquiesced, and sat 
down with their captors on the net-drying 
platform. The sun shone warm upon 
them, and the men stared at the great 
nets, and said something once in awhile 
to one another. None of them knew 



that a pair of frightened childish eyes 
was watching from shore. 

The other more fortunate Chinamen of 
the hamlet did not seem to be much con- 
cerned about the fate of the four who 
had not been able to satisfy the white 
men about "chock chee." But Ti, who 
understood very little about the reason 
for any certificate, could not bear to go 
away out of sight of the net-drying plat- 
form where his father was — who knew 
what those white men were going to do to 
him? 

The little boy's heart beat heavily with 
fear. He went behind a small hut on the 
edge of the fishing-hamlet, and peered 
out, keeping watch of his father and the 
three other prisoners. 

" I don't know what they do to my 
father!" worried Ti, winking back the 
tears from his black eyes. 

The men on the platform all seemed to 
be waiting for something. Ti did not 
know what it was, for he had not looked 
at the water of the bay. He kept his eyes 
fixed on his father. He expected to 
see something dreadful happen, but noth- 
ing occurred. At last the boy came out 
from his hiding place and set about find- 
ing out what was to be. 

" What will they do to my father?" he 
asked one of the Chinamen. 

" Take him to the city." 

"Will they kill him?" he questioned, 
with a child's unreasoning fear. 

The Chinaman shook his head. 

" He come back," he said. 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



13 



And Ti was comforted. " Me go, too/' 
lie thought, with new inspiration. 

It had been a long time, about two 
years, since he had been to the city to see 
his cousin, a boy younger than himself. 
His father had been promising to take 
him sometime. 

Ti now ran to the net-drying platform, 
and asked his father's permission. His 
father spoke to the white men. 

* Oh, yes," said one. " Take the little 
fellow, if you want to! But don't take 
him unless you're sure you've got ' chock 
chee ' in city. If you haven't ' chock 
chee ' there, you're going to be in big 
trouble,- and you don't want any boy 
along!" 

" Me got number one ' chock chee ' in 
city," reiterated Ti's father. 

"All right," said the white man; and 
Ti ran to his uncle's wife to be dressed for 
the journey. His mother was dead, so 
Uncle Lum Lee's wife dressed him. 

He was a gorgeous little Chinaman by 
the time his best clothes were on. His 
ordinary calico apron that he wore over 
his every-day " shorn " was discarded, and 
his little body was stuffed out with many 
blouses, worn one over another in Chi- 
nese fashion. His outside blouse was 
bright yellow, and his trousers were 
green. They were tied about his ankles, 
but this did not hide the fact that he 
wore the things that he was most proud 
of, his new pink American stockings! 

The little lad was ready long before 
there was any need of it, and he stood on 



the net-drying platform, a bright little 
figure in yellow and green and pink. The 
white men, the four Chinamen, and Ti, 
sat on the platform and waited for the 
tide. After a while one of the men 
yawned and rubbed his eyes. 

" This f chock chee ' business is slow," 
he said. 

An old figure in a shabby blue shorn 
and trousers came down to the net-drying 
platform. 

" Here comes a real old Celestial," said 
one white man. 

Old See Yow came slowly on. He 
stopped. 

"Kunghi, kunghi!" said old See Yow; 
meaning, " I respectfully wish you joy." 

"Kunghi, kunghi, old man," said one 
of the men good-naturedly. " What can 
I do for you? Have you come to beguile 
our weary hours?" 

" You talk Chinese," said old See Yow 
respectfully in his own tongue. " Can 
you also read it?" 

" Some," answered the man. 

" Will you come ?" asked See Yow, 
beckoning. "I wish to show you some- 
thing." 

The man rose lazily and smiled. The 
time was long, and there were enough 
others to attend to the four Chinese. So 
he followed See Yow along the platform, 
off to the shore, through the narrow 
street, till they came to the old man's 
door. There, pasted up beside the en- 
trance, was the new red paper that Ti had 
given him. 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

Chinaman pointed to the 



14 

The old 
paper. 

" Can you read it?" he asked in Chi- 
nese. 

The man looked at the red placard. He 
studied it a little and then he nodded. 

"You no read it?" he asked. 

See Yow nodded. " I read," he said, 
" but the center of my heart does not un- 
derstand. What is it the words say?" 

The man read it: " Come unto me, all 
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
will give you rest." 

"You no sabe that?" he asked. 

See Yow shook his head. No, he did 
not understand. 

Somewhere in the depths of the 
visitor's memory something stirred. He 
remembered a boyhood when his mother 
read such verses. He remembered when 
he, too, read them. Little had he read 
such words in the years of manhood, but 
he knew what that red paper meant. 
Yes, he knew. He hesitated. He was 
glad his companions were not present to 
listen to his explanation. 

" Jesus Christ said that," he explained 
in Chinese. "You know Jesus Christ?" 

See Yow shook his head. He did not 
know anything about Jesus Christ. 

The man stood and looked at the 
paper. 

" Where did you get it?" he asked. 

See Yow explained. 

The other laughed a little. 



" Very good 
turned away. 



paper," he said, and 



Old See Yow looked puzzled and dis- 
appointed. 

"What is it the words say?" he asked 
anxiously in Chinese. " What is it they 
say?" 

But the man was walking down the nar- 
row street. He did not care to talk about 
the words any more. 

See Yow stood and looked at the red 
paper in a distressed way. Something in 
his heart cried out for the meaning of 
those words, but there was nobody to tell 
him what they meant. 

" They are new words," he re- 
peated despairingly. " They are new 
words." 

There was a puzzled wistfulness in the 
old eyes. The strange man had said that 
it was a " very good paper." See Yow 
gazed at the paper respectfully. He 
would keep it there. Perhaps it was a 
charm to ward off evil spirits, as pieces of 
embroidered silk may keep evil spirits 
away, if the silk is hung near a bed. 

Meantime the stranger had gone back 
to the net-drying platform. The men he 
had left there were talking together. One 
of them looked up. 

"What did your old Chinaman take 
you off to see?" he asked laughingly. 

" Just a paper," answered the other, as 
he walked down to the end of the plat- 
form, and stood alone a few minutes, 
looking out at the slow-coming tide. 

" I didn't come down here to preach a 
sermon!" he told himself uneasily, trying 
to forget how old See Yow's face had 



II: A STORY OF CHINATOWN, 



15 



looked. " ' Chock chee ' is more in my 
line. I wish that tide would hurry!" 

He looked off at the distant horizon. 
Perhaps he saw something there besides 
low-lying haze. Perhaps he saw a little 
boy beside his mother's knee. Perhaps, 
too, he heard something besides the indis- 
tinct sound of conversation behind him 
and the cry of sea-gulls. Perhaps he 
heard that mother's voice reading out of 
an old Book. Presently he turned and 
went back to the others. By and by the 
tide came up, and the men and the four 
Chinese went off together with Ti. After 
a while the little Chinese fishing-hamlet 
faded, and Ti could see it no more. 

It was wonderful to the little boy to be 
really going to the city! He stood on the 
boat and looked out at the sparkling, 
ruffled water. On and on they went, and 
he saw a sea-gull, and the wind blew 
brisk and salt, and he laughed at the 
spray that flew in his face. And then, 
after they had been sailing quite a time, 
he lifted his eyes and saw in the distance 
the smoke of an American steamboat. He 
was delighted. It was only a foretaste of 
the wonderful things he was going to see, 
he knew. He was going to the city! 

But little Ti did not know what things 
should befall him there, and that he 
would not see the Chinese fishing-hamlet 
again for two whole years. Perhaps, if 
he had known, he would have turned and 
looked once more in the direction in 
which the fishing-hamlet lay. 

But he did not think of such a thing as 



his staying away more than a few days. 
He stood looking at the smoke of the 
American steamboat, and the wind blew 
his pink-plaited little queue over his 
shoulder, and the spray lit on his bright 
yellow "shorn" and green trousers, and 
his almond eyes took in everything. 

"You're a regular little sailor," said 
one of the men in English. 

But Ti did not understand. He knew 
only a very little English, for he had not 
had anybody to talk that language with at 
the fishing-hamlet, and he had forgotten 
many words he once had known when he 
lived in the city as a very little boy. Be- 
sides, he did not want to talk now. He 
was going to the great city, and he was so 
happy! 

But, alas! back in the Chinese fishing- 
hamlet, old See Yow went to and fro, as 
ignorant and unsatisfied as ever. The 
" center of his heart " was yet wistfully 
longing for something, he knew not what. 
The " very good paper " with its message 
was not understood. Alas, that "chock 
chee " had been more in the white man's 
line! 




CHAPTER III. 



KWONG GOON. 



HE city reached, Ti's father 
found his certificate and 
made his peace with the 
" chock chee " men. Then 
the two went to Ti's 
uncle's, and the boy was happy with his 



16 TI: A STOBY OF CHINAIOWN. 

little cousins in the small rooms above baby Hop, who was now two years old, 

and back of the uncle's store, that was but whom Ti had never before seen. And 

hung with gay Chinese lanterns, and had then Aunt Ah Cheng told him how nice a 

shelves and cases filled with Chinese dolls, birthday feast they had had for baby Hop 

and rice paper pictures, and little storks when he was four weeks old. Chinese 

and frogs, and beautifully made boxes, babies have a feast when they are four 

and white silk handkerchiefs such as weeks of age. The other cousin, Hop's 

Americans buy. brother Whan, was five years old. 

It was a great change for Ti, coming Ti went to the little front balcony and 




from his little fishing-hamlet to this great 
city. His aunt, Ah Cheng, was glad to 
see him, and she began to cook some meat 
in Chinese cooking oil for the visitors. 
She turned the meat with a couple of red 
chopsticks while it was cooking, and into 
a kettle that contained some more cook- 
ing oil she threw the wet leaves of some 
vegetable. The leaves, beginning to 
cook, made a great spluttering in the hot 
oil on top of the charcoal range, and Ti 
thought how good dinner would be. 

His aunt, Ah Cheng, was very pleasant, 
and told him he ought to have come to 
the city before, to visit his little cousin, 



looked out. Across the street he could 
see a Chinaman standing behind a small 
table set on the sidewalk. The table had 
a red, black-stained cover, and the man 
was a fortune-teller. 

On a farther building were two enor- 
mous red and green lanterns. All of the 
people who lived along here were Chinese. 
Over at the corner was a Chinese 
butcher's shop, where pork and vegetables 
were for sale. One shallow, round basket 
on the sidewalk contained a quantity of 
white, dry watermelon seeds, such as the 
Chinese eat. Another basket held beans 
that had been made to sprout and put 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

forth runners about two inches long. The 
runners and beans were alike very pale 
and were tender for eating. 

Ti turned around and looked at the 
room in which he was standing. The 
outer room, in which his aunt 
was cooking, was one used 
in common for that purpose 
by other Chinese families liv- 
ing in this house, but the little 
room Ti stood in was exclu- 
sively that of Aunt Cheng's 
family. The little boy gazed 
at its furnishings. There was. 
a shelf for the household gods, 
and there was a table with 
candles and incense - sticks. 
There were several stools, and 
a picture of the Chinese god- 
dess of mercy, Kun Yam, 
the goddess that is so much 
worshiped by all Chinese 
women and girls, whether in 
China or America. 

There was a bed made of 
boards, covered with a square 
of matting. Around the bed 
were some curtains, fastened 
with loops of Chinese money, 
" cash/' and beside the cur- 
tains hung pieces of em- 
broidered silk of different colors 
silken pieces were charms against evil 
spirits. Poor as the room was, it seemed 
beautiful to Ti, who had come so recently 
from his fishing-village. 

He went back to the room where his 



i, 

aunt was cooking. Other women of dif- 
ferent families were here now, and there 
was one quarrelsome woman among 
them. He did not like it so well as when 
his aunt was there alone, but his little 




These 



Chinese Fortune-teller's Table. 

cousin, Whan, was ready to run down 
into the store with him, so together the 
two somewhat unacquainted cousins went 
below and peeped out the store door at 
the old Chinese fortune-teller and his red 
covered table, farther down across the 



18 

street. It did not seem to be a very good 
day for the fortune-teller. He stood there 
without any customers. 

* But it is not so every day," said little 

CHINESE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 



TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 




Yee Yin. 




Yet Com. 



Wong Sev. 




Tai Com. 



Whan in Chinese to Ti. "He is very 
wise, and people go to him. Is there a 



fortune-teller at the fishing place where 
you live?" 

"No," said Ti, who was greatly im- 
pressed by the wonders of the city. 

The two children stepped out on the 
street. Here and there were other Chi- 
nese children, some with their parents, 
some alone on errands. There were many 
Chinamen going back and forth. Some, 
who had been to the butcher's, carried 
little cornucopias of brown paper contain- 
ing small quantities of meat. Most such 
Chinese people had very little quantities 
of vegetables, too. There was a queer 
sound of music in the air. That is, the 
music w r ould have been strange in Ameri- 
can ears. Some one in the upper story 
of an opposite building was playing a 
stringed musical instrument. 

Ti stood and looked over at the unfor- 
tunate fortune-teller. But he did not 
seem to be much depressed by his lack of 
customers, and there w r as so much else to 
see and hear that Ti forgot about him. 
The stringed instrument had been joined 
by other Chinese musical instruments, 
and the little boy stared up at the higher 
wdndow opposite and listened. But his 
cousin Whan did not like this. "He pulled 
Ti farther on the street. 

" Come and see," said he, bent on show- 
ing his country cousin the sights. 

But Ti would listen for a minute or 
two. He thought the music was verv 
fine, though it was squeaky. But soon the 
squeaking instruments w r ere aided by a 
much more powerful one, for some other 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



19 



player joined in with a loud sound of 
metal beaten, as of a kettle-drum. 

Ti saw an old Chinaman sitting on a 
box on the sidewalk. 
He had another little 
box before him, and he 
was an opium pipe 
mender. He was busy 
mending and cleaning 
part of such a pipe — 
jin-ten — now. 

Around the corner 
sat a Chinese cobbler, 
working on the street. 
He held a blue, thick- 
soled Chinese shoe, and 
hummed a funny little 
song. There were some 
pieces of leather soak- 
ing in a small tub be- 
side him, and on the 
side of the box before 
him there was a red 
paper with Chinese 
characters. The cobbler 
had a board put up at 
one side of his open-air 
shop, and he looked at 
Ti and little Whan in a 
friendly way. 

Ti gazed into a Chi- 
nese barber shop, and 
saw the barber shaving a customer's head. 
The customer held up a little tin box, and 
every time the barber clipped off any hair, 
he dropped it into this tin. Another 
barber was cleaning out the interior of a 



customer's ear with a little black instru- 
ment. 

Not far off was a Chinese druggist's 
) 




Chinese Cobbler. 

shop. In the window were two bottles of 
" horned toads " in alcohol, and, peering 
into the store, Ti saw a Chinaman sitting, 
working the handle of a machine up and 
down. He seemed to be cutting roots to 



20 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



pieces, and the machine appeared to work 
somewhat as a machine for thinly slicing 
dried beef does in an American grocery 
store. 

The two boys went on to a Chinese 
vegetable shop, where some yellow squares 
of bean curd were piled for sale. Each 
square of curd was marked with a Chi- 
nese character, and the curds were notice- 
able on account of their yellow color. 





Chinese manner of carrying wood in San Francisco. 

Long pieces of sugar cane, brought from 
China, stood up against the side of the 
building, like so many fishing poles 
or pieces of bamboo. There were cut 
pieces of sugar cane, too, about seven 
inches long, for sale, two pieces for five 
cents. 

Ti gazed at a cage of turtles slowly 
crawling about their prison. There were 
some big crabs, too, in a receptacle, one 
lying on his back. The crabs made Ti 
feel more at home. He had seen so many 
of them at the fishing village. 

Near by was a Chinese shop for dried 
fish. Here on a corner was an old scribe, 
writing a letter for a Chinese coolie. He 
wrote with a brush that he held upright 
and moved mostly by his little finger. Ti 



and Whan looked at this scribe's writing 
with great respect. In a few minutes the 
letter was written, the coolie paid the 
scribe and went away. 

" We must go home," said little Whan 
in Chinese to Ti. " My mother will have 
cooked the dinner." 

They i^urned around and went back 
toward Whan's father's store. The two 
children looked again at the vegetable 
shop as they went by it, and Whan said 
that once the Chinese vegetable seller 
had given him a piece of sugar cane to 
eat. Both boys would have liked some 
sugar cane. They looked at the vegetable 
man's little boy, and lingered near his 
shop a minute, but the vegetable seller 
was too busy to notice. 

Ti turned away. He peeped into an- 
other street, and beheld a sight that hor- 
rified him — a house with five great 
gilded teeth swinging in the balcony be- 
fore the house! He gazed with horror at 
those big teeth. He had never before 
known about Chinese dentists, and those 
swinging, monstrous teeth filled him with 
fearful conjectures of what was done in 
that house. He turned and ran. 

Little Whan could not imagine what 
had frightened his cousin so. He ran 
after, calling. Ti ran in the wrong direc- 
tion, not toward his uncle's store, and 
nearly plunged down the stairs into a cel- 
lar below the sidewalk, where wood was 
for sale by Chinamen. Looking down 
the stairs, the passers could see the wood 
tied in little bundles for purchasers. 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



2f 



There was a bright new axe visible in the 
cellar. A Chinaman came along the 




street, carrying an amount of wood at 
each end of a pole hung across his shoul- 
der, as a Chinese vegetable peddler carries 
his baskets, except that the two piles of 



wood were not in baskets, but were kept, 
in place at each end of the pole by a Chi- 
nese contrivance. 

Whan caught up with Ti, and, grasping- 
his shoulder, said, " You go the wrong 
way. Why did yon 
run?" 

But Ti would not tell, 
for he was already a little 
ashamed to have been 
frightened over the big 
swinging teeth. He felt 
as if he were an ignorant 
little country Chinaman. 
No doubt small Whan, 
five years old, had often, 
seen that house- 
with the teeth,. 
and was not . 
scared; and here.- 
was he, Ti, ai 
boy eight years-, 
old, afraid of: 
something that 
did not terrify 
his little cousin! 
So Whan did 
not get any an- 
swer to his ques,- 
tion. 
But it was time for dinner, and Ti was 
quite ready to ran home. The boys had 
dinner together, without any sugar cane,, 
but Ti did not care. The Chinese greens 
and the meat tasted very good, and he ate 
rice, too. 

Ti's father thought that he and his 



22 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



little boy would stay a few days and visit. 
It was the time of the feast of Kwong 
Goon, that heathen deity who, the Chi- 
nese believe, has much to do with the 
dead. Ti's father had thought of its be- 
ing the time of the feast, and he had been 
all the more willing to come down to the 
city with the " chock chee " men. 

The next day after arriving in the city, 
Ti and his father, and little cousin Whan 
and the uncle, went to a joss-house to see 
and to carry gifts for the festival. Those 
Chinese who had relatives that had died 
since the last Kwong Goon festival, 
brought prayer papers and joss sticks to 
the altar. Candy, tea, cigars and dried 
fish were laid before Kwong Goon. 
"Well might the Chinese fear him, accord- 
ing to their religious belief, for he is the 
deity who is supposed to devour the bodies 
of irreligious Chinamen. 

Much money had been spent on this 
festival. Little Ti, looking at the altar of 
Kwong Goon, saw it resplendent with can- 
dles and gilt censers. The gilded altar 
pieces were imported ones, and in this 
joss-house in the Chinese part of an 
American city, the Chinese high priest in- 
toned the services for the souls of dead 
Chinamen. 

Ti and his folks were near the shrine. 
If this had not been so, perhaps something 
would not have happened. As it was, 
five-year-old Whan came to great grief. 
Notwithstanding the holiness of the altar, 
the Chinese men occasionally took cigars 
from a tray that lay before the shrine. 



Seeing this, little Whan reached out his 
tiny yellow hand and helped himself to a 
piece of dried fish that had been offered to 
Kwong Goon. 

Woe to little Whan! What a crime was 
this! The Chinese women who were about 
him pounced down on the little boy and 
nearly choked him, trying to get that 
piece of fish, for he had put it into his 
mouth, and the women were determined 
to get the fish before he could swallow it. 
They forced his mouth open. One woman 
had her bony fingers tightly around his 
throat. Another had seized the end of 
the piece of fish. Whan struggled and 
gasped. Ti looked on in alarm, lest his lit- 
tle cousin should be choked. But the 
women got the fish. 

The tumult subsided. Great Kwong 
Goon was honored by an offering of punk 
sticks, and little Whan, the beginner of 
this confusion, offended against the pro- 
prieties of the occasion no more. Per- 
haps what he had done would have been 
forgotten, had not something happened to 
him within the next few days, something 
that his parents regarded as the result of 
Whan's act at the Kwong Goon festival. 

What happened was this. The festival 
continued through the week, and Ti and 
his father stayed, for the father had some 
matters he wanted to attend to in the 
city. Now, about five days after his visit 
to the shrine of Kwong Goon, little Whan 
was taken ill. He was languid and 
slightly feverish. He could not swallow 
his rice without pain and difficulty. 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 23 

'* It is because you tried to eat a piece But Whan was not well. Seeing this, 
of the fish belonging to Kwong Goon/' his father made up his mind to go to a 
said his mother. " This is your punish- Chinese drug store, although he would not 
ment." 

Little TV h a n , 
who felt very mis- 
erable, supposed 
that what his su- 
perstitious mother 
said was true. He 
did not know that 
he had been ex- 
posed t o diph- 
theria, and that he 
would probably 
have had the dis- 
ease anyway, if he had not gone 
to the festival. He resolved 
that he would never offend 
Kwong Goon again. 

"Whan felt no better after his 
resolve, however, and his father 
thought that the disease must 
be produced by some angry 
spirit. So that night the father 
went outside the store with 
some pieces of Chinese money 
and a bowl of rice, and after 
prostrating himself several 
times before the invisible evil 
spirit, he threw the money and 
the rice at the place where he supposed 
the evil spirit to be. Then he went back 
into the house. 

"You will be well now," he told 
Whan. " Lu-tsu, the medicine god, who 
pities the sick, will help you." 




The Vegetable Man's Little Boy. 

stay there for any other business than 
that pertaining to the place, for fear that 
the evil spirits that produce sickness 
might be lurking among the medicines. 
So, having seen the sign in Chinese, " Bad 
Spirits Xot Admitted," he got Whan some 



24 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



medicine from the "Hall of Joyful Re- 
lief," as the Chinese characters on the 
apothecary's shop denoted it to be. But 
the " Hall of Joyful Belief » did not help 
the little boy, so his father got some medi- 
cine from the "Promise Life Palace/' 
and the "Hall for Multiplying Years/' 
and the " Great Life Hall/' and from a 
place where the board read in Chinese, 
"Wo Ki Ying feels the pulse and writes 
prescriptions for internal and external 
disease." Moreover the father consulted 
one of the Chinese fortune-tellers, who 
looked at the sick child's nose and said it 
was like a dog's, and for that reason 
Whan would live long. According to 
this fortune-teller's rule, " A man with a 
dog's nose will live long." 

Moreover, the friendly Chinese butcher, 
who had recently come from China, gave 
Ti's father a cow's tooth which had been 
found in a field near Swatow, and which, 
the butcher said, if brought into a dwell- 
ing and put on the shelf of the gods, 
would keep demons from entering. 

With all this, little Whan did not seem 

to get better. 

♦ 

CHAPTER IV. 

LITTLE WHAN. 

TIRING Whan's sickness the 
other children were not 
kept away from him. It 
was not the Chinese custom 
to do that. 
When the teacher — who was not the 




person who had sent the paper to the fish- 
ing camp, but another teacher — came 
through the district and saw little Whan, 
she knew that something serious was the 
matter. She said to his father, "Your 
boy is sick. You should get an Ameri- 
can doctor." 

" It is Kwong Goon who makes Whan 
sick," said Ah Cheng, the child's mother. 
" Kwong Goon will punish him for taking 
the fish! His throat is sick." 

But the father did as the teacher said. 
He sent for an American doctor. 

"Your boy has diphtheria," said the 
doctor, as he looked at little Whan. 
" That's what ails him." 

The doctor told the father to keep the 
sick boy in a room separate from the 
other children. 

"Yes," said the father stupidly, and 
he looked at the doctor and wondered if, 
after all, it would not have been much 
better to have gone again to the "Hall 
of Joyful Relief " and got some more Chi- 
nese medicine, than to have called this 
American doctor. For what was the 
reason why Whan should be shut up in a 
room by himself? Would not the evil 
spirits that make sickness come to him? 
What a singular thing! 

The father looked suspiciously at the 
doctor and his medicine. It was Kwong 
Goon who had made Whan ill, no doubt, 
and was it likely that putting the boy off 
in a room by himself would cure him? 
What did this American doctor know 
about Kwong Goon, anyhow? 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 25 

The doctor saw the father's distrustful the midst of the work, the three children 
look, and tried to explain as best he could all were together again. There was noth- 
in English. ing before the doorways of the rooms, 

" Do you not see?" asked 
he. a If your boy has diph- 
theria, your baby might 
take it, and so might the 
cousin from the country. 
You must keep Whan in a 
room by himself/' 

"Yes," said the father. 
" Yes." 

"Be sure to do it," reit- 
erated the doctor. 

"Yes," said the father; 
and, after the doctor had 
gone, he told his wife, who 
had not seen the doctor, for 
he had not been allowed to 
come to the living-room 
upstairs, but only to enter 
the store. 

But the next day, when 
the teacher came back, she 
found that Whan's mother 
had not done as the doctor 
said. She meant to do the 
best for her children, poor 
Ah Cheng! but she did not 
understand about infection. 

" You must put Whan in 
a different room, away from 
the other children," said 
the teacher kindly, and she showed the anyhow, except thin red curtains. Ti 
mother how. and Hop wanted to be with Whan con- 

Whan stayed separate till after the stantly, and the mother thought that 
teacher went away. Then, somehow, in keeping the sick child separate was only 




Chinese Festival of Kwong Goon. 



26 



TU A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



an American notion, anyway, and not of ing the teacher now, and they did not 
much importance. It seemed too bad to watch her suspiciously, as they had once 
separate the children, when they liked one done. They knew, now, that she was 
another so well. In pure kindness, Ah friendly, and she could talk their tongue. 
Cheng allowed the three to be together. The teacher hastened up the long out- 
Toward evening the teacher came side narrow stairs that led to the rooms 
again. She was alarmed over Whan, and where Ti's aunt lived. A door at the top 
stayed to watch by him, but the ignorant of the stairway had some Chinese char- 
mother slept. In the morning the father acters on it. She rapped, said something 
and mother were frightened about the in Chinese, and entered without waiting, 
sick child, for they saw how very much Directly in front of her, in the tiny, 
worse he was. They lighted tapers and box-like entry, was what would look to 
burned incense, hoping to make him bet- American eyes like a large, rectangular 
ter, and to appease the evil spirit that tin for ashes. There were ashes in the 
they felt sure was tormenting him. tin, but there was a red paper on the wall 



Diphtheria is common enough in China, 
sometimes. 

But Whan grew worse. He could not 
drink without strangling. He did not 
wish to eat. 

By this time, two-year-old Hop and his 
cousin Ti were both taken with the same 
disease, diphtheria. 

" It is Kwong Goon who does this," 
still said Whan's mother. 
Kwong Goon." 

But little five-year-old Whan was dying, 
though his mother did not realize it. 

The teacher, who had been obliged to 
go herself for the American doctor and 
had not found him in, hurried now from 
the street into the narrow alley. Around 
it stood Chinamen as usual, talking. A 
Chinese woman with ankle ornaments 
like bracelets went into a doorway. The 
teacher nodded to the woman and hurried 
on. All these Chinese were used to see- 



above, and this was a place for worship of 
the gods. 

The teacher did not stop an instant. 
She hurried through the narrow passage 
at the left. The passage was cut with 
several doors, hung with thin red cur- 
tains. A person could readily enter any 
room, but the teacher hastened to the one 
where Ti and Whan and Hop were. She 
It is the god had not meant to be away so long. 

But she knew, now, before she entered 
the room, that One had been there before 
her. He who loves the children had 
looked not only upon little Whan in his 
pain and suffering, but on baby Hop, and 
was taking them to himself. The teacher 
heard wailing before she lifted the thin 
red curtain of the room. Little Whan 
was dead. The dreadful diphtheria had 
done its work, and when the teacher took 
baby Hop into her arms, she believed that 
the child would follow his brother soon. 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



27 



The teacher did all she could. The 
American doctor came at last, but it was 
too late. In those last dreadful moments 




Whan's Mother, 

of baby Hop's life, his mother, poor Ah 
Cheng, prostrated herself before the old 
picture of the goddess of mercy, and 
prayed and sobbed. 

" Oh, save my baby! Save my baby!" 
she sobbed wildly in Chinese. " Oh, Kun 
Yam, goddess of mercy, save my baby!" 

The teacher's tears ran down her 



cheeks, as she saw the heart agony with 
which poor Ah Cheng sobbed and wrung 
her hands and prayed before that picture. 
But the dear little two-years-old baby in 
the teacher's arms drew a last, faint gasp, 
and the teacher saw with reverent awe 
the seal of death set itself on the baby 
face. 

She laid down the little body and 
put the chubby brown hands gently 
together, and then went softly across 
the room, and knelt beside the poor 
wailing mother. 

Ah Cheng lifted up her drawn, 
agonized face, and looked toward her 
child. As she realized what had hap- 
pened, a cry of despair broke from her 




lips. She flung herself wildly 
beat her head against the floor. 



28 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



"Kim Yam! Kun Yam!" she wailed. 
" I shall never see them again! Both my 
sons are dead, and I shall never see them 
again! Kun Yam! Kun Yam!" 

"Poor Ah Cheng! I am so sorry for 
you," said the teacher, slipping her arm 
around Ah Cheng and drawing her head 
down until it rested upon her shoulder. 
" I am so sorry for you, and there is One 
who is more sorry for you than anybody 
else can be, for He is here and knows our 
sorrow. It is Jesus, Ah Cheng, Jesus, 
who loves the children. Your children 
are with him and he will keep them safe. 
And, Ah Cheng,' he loves you, too, and 
wants to comfort you." 

Ah Cheng's sobbing grew a little 
quieter. 

" You cry out to Kun Yam, Ah Cheng, 
because your heart must have help in this 
trouble; and Jesus is listening to every 
cry, and he can help you. He has taken 
the little ones to himself. Some day he 
will restore them to you, if you trust him 
and open your heart to his love, believing 
in him as your best Friend." 

Then very lovingly and patiently did 
the teacher try to explain to the stricken 
mother that this Jesus is the one true 
God, and that he is close to us, though 
our eyes cannot see him. 

The night that baby Hop died, Ti was 
too ill to know it. He did not compre- 
hend the wailing. It had been a confused 
outburst of sound without any meaning 
to him, as he half dozed on his bunk. As 
feverish Ti lay there the next day, how- 



ever, he looked continually at the teacher. 
Sometimes he seemed to himself to know 
her. Other times he thought he did not. 
There was an odor of much burning in- 
cense in the air. He felt very strangely. 
He wished he were back in the fishing vil- 
lage with his father and old See Yow and 
Uncle Lum Lee and the others. He had 
never felt so queer there. He did not 
know that he was sick. He only knew 
that sometimes the teacher sitting as he 
supposed by baby Hop seemed to turn 
into old See Yow, and sometimes she 
looked like his father. And sometimes 
the tapers that were lit seemed to whirl 
and change, as he had seen the moonlight 
on the waves near by the fishing village at 
night. 

His throat hurt. He had not eaten his 
rice. His throat felt as little Whan said 
his felt that day at the feast of Kwong- 
Goon, when the bony - fingered woman 
clasped his neck so tightly, to keep him 
from swallowing the piece of fish. 

As Ti lay looking with feverish eyes,, 
suddenly the teacher's face seemed to- 
him to be that of the heathen deity,. 
Kwong Goon. The child shuddered. He- 
could not reason any more. He thought 
Kwong Goon's fingers were clasping the 
neck of this little sick Chinese boy, Ti 
himself. 

" I did not touch your fish! Whan did 
it!" Ti struggled to cry out, but the words- 
stopped in his throat. 

Surely the great, the dreadful Kwong- 
Goon would not make such a mistake!. 



He must know the difference between Ti 
and Whan! 

He tried to shut his feverish eyes, but 
they would come open again, and every 
time he opened them he became more and 
more sure that it was not the teacher 
woman who sat there, but it must be 
Kwong Goon. Poor little Ti! He was 
becoming more and more feverish and 
confused. He did not have his right 
mind, or he would not have thought so 
foolish a thing, but the continual talk of 
his relatives about Kwong Goon, the last 
few weeks, had frightened him, and now 
his feverish brain was alarmed at seeing 
what he thought was Kwong Goon's face. 
The teacher did not know that the little 
boy lay there in a state of terror, or she 
would have sprung up and come to him. 
He opened his lips and tried to cry, " Go 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

is strong. 



29 

He can keep you 



away, Kwong Goon! Go away!" He 
tried to say, " You must not kill me!" but 
something in his throat seemed to stop 
the words. 

The imagined face seemed to come 
nearer. It was dreadful Kwong Goon. 
Ti tried to cry out, to escape. Kwong 
Goon came nearer. 

" Go away!" the sick boy tried to 
scream. " Go away!" 

But he could not speak. He felt as if 
he were choking. Suddenly he felt the 
teacher woman bending over him. 

" Ti," she said gently in Chinese, " lit- 
tle Ti, what is it? Do not be afraid. 
Remember Jesus is here — Jesus that I 
told you about, Ti — Jesus who loves 



you. He 
safe." 

Ti could not answer. The teacher 
lifted him. He heard a wailing. There 
came a strong odor of incense. He 
gasped. 

Then he did not remember things any 




A man with a dog's nose will live long," said the 
fortune-teller. 



more for a while. Occasionally the 
teacher's face would show in the mist that 
seemed to surround him. One time it 
occurred to him to wonder why the 
teacher woman did not leave him any 
more and go to Hop. He tried to turn 
his head and look toward baby Hop. It 
took a good deal of trying, but at last he 
did turn his head. The place where the 
baby had lain was empty. Ti shut his 



30 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



eyes, and everything drifted away into 
mist again. At the fishing - hamlet he 
had sometimes seen the fog roll up the 
bay and cover everything from sight. So 
now everything vanished. 

He did not know when the wailing- 
women came, and candles were burned, 
and afterwards Chinese imitation paper 
money was thrown away on the street, as 
the bodies of little Whan and little Hop 
were taken away to the Chinese burying 
ground far out toward the ocean. 

In the days that came the Christian 
teacher woman stayed with Ti and did 
her best to comfort Ah Cheng. When- 
ever she could, she tried to teach her 
more about Jesus. But Ah Cheng was 
afraid to believe, for all her life she had 
feared the gods, and what the teacher told 
her seemed too good to be true. 

Gradually Ti grew better. He was out 
of danger. His father, who knew from 
the epidemics of diphtheria in China how 
that disease can take away children, felt 
much relieved that Ti was growing better. 
He believed that diphtheria is caused by 
an evil spirit, and now he went to the 
joss-house and posted on the wall a red 
paper of thanksgiving for Ti's recovery. 

According to the Chinese custom of 
Availing, little Whan and baby Hop were 
wailed for by their mother at a set time 
of day every seventh day for seven suc- 
cessive weeks. But it was no formal 
mockery of wailing with poor Ah Cheng. 
Sometimes Chinese people wail at the set 
time and then suddenly break off wailing 



and go about their work as if nothing had 
happened except that they had performed 
a duty. But Ah Cheng's mourning came 
from her heart, and many a time, besides 
the set wailing periods, she wept for her 
little children, and often in her loneliness 
she sobbed, "I shall never see them 
again!" 

When Ti was well enough to be around 
again, his uncle and aunt besought his 
father, saying, "Let Ti stay with us a 
while! Whan is dead and Hop is dead. 
Let Ti stay to comfort us a while." 

So Ti's father, pitying the lonely par- 
ents, went back to the fishing-hamlet 
alone, and Ti was left to live on with his 
uncle and aunt. 

CHAPTER V. 

A NEW ACQUAINTANCE. 

HEY were very kind to Ti in 
his uncle's home. The 
Chinese are fond of chil- 
dren, and Ti had no mother 
at the fishing-hamlet to 
worry about him. 

When the twenty-first day after the 
death of little Whan and Hop was pass- 
ing, Ti's aunt looked very sorrowful. She 
spread a table with food, such as little 
Whan and Hop had liked in their life- 
time. That night the doors were all left 
unlocked, and the uncle and Ti and his 
aunt went to bed. But Ah Cheng wept, 
for she believed that at midnight her little 
boys' spirits would return and she would 




TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



31 



not see them. But the doors must not be 
locked on her own children. They must 
be allowed to come in. The Chinese 
think that it is not till a person has been 
dead twenty-one days that he knows he is 
dead. Then he discovers it and is fright- 
ened. Crying out in alarm, he starts 
back to earth. Ti's aunt thought that 
her little boys would come back and take 
the essence of the food she had set out for 
them, and would go away again to the 
spirit world, leaving the substance of the 
food for the family to eat the next morn- 
ing. Xo wonder that stricken Ah Cheng 
cried all night at the thought that her 
two little children came back, frightened, 
and she could neither see nor speak to 
them, and they went away again. 

" I shall never see them again!" wept 
the poor mother through the night. 
" Kun Yam! Kun Yam! I shall never 
see them again!*' 

The teacher who had been so kind dur- 
ing the children's illness came often now 
to try to comfort their mother and teach 
her and Ti. But it seemed almost impos- 
sible for Ah Cheng to believe and so be 
comforted. She was very superstitious, 
and in this new home to which Ti had 
come, the " front door god," the " street 
god/' the "floor god," the "kitchen 
god," the "bed god," the "roof god," 
the " water god," and the " sky goddess " 
were worshiped. 

The teacher was very kind and pitiful 
to the poor mother. 

" I want to tell you something, Ah 



Cheng," she said one day, when she had 
come in and found the heart - broken 
woman bowed before the old picture of 
the goddess of mercy, and Ti sitting so- 
berly watching his aunt's tears and 
sobbing. 

"I want to tell you something," she 
repeated. " A number of years ago there 
lived in China a girl who worshiped the 
goddess of mercy, as you worship her. 
After this girl had worshiped the goddess 
for twenty years, her mother lay dying. 
The mother told the family to make her 
ready and lay her away to die. So they 
dressed her in good clothes and, putting 
her on a board, laid her in another room 
to die. The mother died and was buried. 
The daughter felt very badly, but the 
goddess of mercy did not help in this 
great trouble." 

Ah Cheng's wistful eyes were fixed on 
the teacher's face. 

" Xo, the goddess did not help," re- 
peated the teacher gently in Chinese. 
" The poor daughter had no hope of ever 
seeing her mother again. The only help 
she had was to go and lie on her mother's 
grave all day, in hope that she might 
dream of her at night. It was only in 
dreams that the poor daughter had any 
hope of ever seeing her dear mother's face 
again." 

The tears filled poor Ah Cheng's eyes. 
She could not even go and lie on her chil- 
dren's graves, for they were away on 
the sand dunes out by the ocean, and she 
was a Chinese woman and must stay in 



32 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



the little rooms where she lived. How 
often she had longed to dream of her two 
little ones since they died! 

" Let me tell you the rest of the story, 
Ah Cheng/' said the teacher gently. 
" That poor daughter would not pray to 
the goddess of mercy any more, after her 
mother's death. Kun Yam had not helped 
in her time of great trouble, so now for 
seven years the daughter worshiped noth- 
ing. She kept the old picture of the god- 
dess of mercy, but she did not worship it, 
and she was very unhappy. 

" But one day she went to see a friend 
at a Christian hospital. At the hospital 
one of the helpers, noticing her sad face, 
began to talk to her about Jesus. She 
told her that Jesus could make her happy. 
She became very attentive, and when she 
went away the helper asked her to come 
again as soon as she could to hear more 
about Jesus. 

" She came again and again, and as she 
learned about Jesus she learned to love 
him and great joy came into her heart. 

" Jesus made the daughter happy, dear 
Ah Cheng, and it is Jesus who can help 
you. He wants you to learn to know him, 
so he can give yon joy, too. He wants to 
make you happy even if you cannot now 
see your children. And then by and by 
when you die he wants to take you to a 
beautiful place where you will see him 
face to face, and your little ones, too, and 
where your children will never be taken 
from you again. But you need not be 
lonely and grieving till then. He wants 



to be with you right here in your home 
every day, to comfort and help you." 

Ah Cheng cried, but she dared not be- 
lieve. She was afraid of the gods. Oh, 
how she did wish she could see her little 
ones again and know this Jesus that the 
teacher told about! If only she could be 
sure they were safe and happy, as the 
teacher woman said! But Cheng's hus- 
band had said that the " Jesus doctrine " 
(religion) was not true. Poor Ah Cheng 
was sorely puzzled. 

The teacher saw how it was. "Poor 
Ah Cheng!" she thought as she went 
away. " Poor, heart-broken creature! I 
will pray for her and help her to come to 
Jesus." 

One day the teacher gave Ti a brown 
paper book, full of Chinese characters. 

" Ti," she said, " your uncle loves you. 
Perhaps he will do for you what he will 
not do for me. Listen to me. This is a 
wonderful book. It is the Jesus book, 
and I give it to you. I want you to ask 
your uncle to read it. He will not read 
it for me, but you ask him. He loves you. 
He will do much for you." 

So Ti, who loved the teacher because 
she had been good to him when he was 
sick, took the brown paper book and 
kept it carefully. It was not as pretty as 
the red paper the other teacher woman 
had sent to the fishing-hamlet, but he 
knew that this brown paper book must be 
something valuable, if this kind teacher 
said so. 

But though Ti asked his uncle many 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

times, the uncle would not read the book, 
which was the New Testament in Chi- 
nese. But the little boy did not yet know 
the reason of that refusal. 

He missed his two cousins very much. 
The teacher saw this, and she begged that 
the aunt and the uncle would let Ti go 
to a small daily Chinese Mission school 
with which she was connected. " He will 
be happy with the other children," urged 
the teacher, " and I will myself come for 
him every day and will bring him safely 
back after school." 

But the uncle would not consent. 
" No," said he sternly. " Ti shall not go! 
The Jesus doctrine is very bad!" 

He frowned at the teacher as he spoke. 
He knew what had happened in another 
Chinese family, he said, after a little boy 
had been allowed to go to the school. 
" The little boy's father," he said, " made 
the boy put the incense sticks up after the 
custom of Chinese worship. The boy was 
standing on a chair to put the incense 
sticks in place, but he did it very slowly. 
His heart was not in it, but he did it be- 
cause he must obey his father. The boy's 
little brother said, ( He doesn't want to 
do it. He believes in Jesus.' And the 
father then struck the little boy who was 
putting up the incense sticks and pushed 
him off the chair. The boy cried a little, 
but it was true that he did not exactly 
wish to put up the incense sticks. Ti 
shall not become like that boy." 

At this the teacher, fearing that she 



33 

if she said more, did not urge Ti's attend- 
ance on school. " But I do wish we could 
have him," she thought. " He is so 
bright, and already he understands a little 
of what I have tried to tell him about 
Christ. Still, I dare not talk about our 
school any more now! Poor little Ti!" 
But she did not know that she would 




might be forbidden to come to the house 



have Ti in school yet. In his loneliness 
it was not long till the little lad had be- 
come acquainted with a Chinese boy who 
lived near his uncle's store. The boy was 
several years older than Ti, and was 
named Yun. Yun went to an American 
public school, where he learned to read 
English. Late in the afternoons, he went 
to still another school, kept by a China- 
man, who taught boys how to read and 



34 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



write Chinese characters. Yuri was a 
very different boy in one school from what 
he was in the other. In the morning and 




have. Yim would have thought such a 
thing dreadful. Some of the Chinese boys 
who went to these schools wore certain 
" honorable " gowns, 
long and blue, and 
those who wore such 
a garment would not 
have disgraced it by 
misbehaving. Y u n 
did not have one of 
these gowns, but in 
his ordinary Chinese 
dress he would not 
have behaved 
wrongly in the Chi- 
nese teachers' public 
school. 

Ti, seeing Yun 
start off to attend 
schools so often, and 
knowing that he was 
learning Chinese 



characters, was 



Reading aloud the news. 

early afternoon public school, taught by 
Americans, he was a restless, fun-loving 
boy. In the late afternoon when he went 
to learn Chinese characters of the teacher 
brought from China, he dared not misbe- 



greatly impressed, 
and believed that he 
knew a great deal. 
Yun's family be- 
lieved in learning. 
His grandfather, who 
wore great goggles 
and occasionally 
smoked a pipe that 
was about a yard long, was reputed to be 
a very learned man; and Yun's father 
published a Chinese newspaper every 
week, in some rooms upstairs across the 
street from Ti's uncle's store. No won- 




TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 

der that the boy Yun must go to school 
so mil eh and learn so many Chinese char- 
acters. He must become wise, like the 
others of his family. 

Ti used to walk across the street, and 
stand at the Chinese printing-office stair- 
way door, and listen to the Chinamen 
reading, for by the door were red and pink 
posters that told what the news was, and 
sometimes there were several men about 
the door, reading the news aloud. Ti 
could not read the Chinese characters, 
himself, of course, but he used to look at 
the bulletins and think he would read 
sometime. 

When none of the men were around, 
the editor's boy, Yun, would sometimes 
proudly show off his knowledge to Ti by 
pointing out characters and telling their 
names, and Ti would listen and admire, 
and wonder at Yun's learning. 

Innocent Ti did not notice that Yun 
was not wont> to air his knowledge when 
men were by. Yun was crafty. He 
knew he could impress Ti, but he knew 
also that it would be a long time before he 
could become a good reader of Chinese, 
and it was wise to refrain from trying to 
show off before men who might laugh. 

Occasionally Yun took Ti upstairs to 
the Chinese printing-office, and let him 
look in. He would see a man whose face 
showed marks which told that he had 
once had the "heavenly blossom," as some 
Chinese call smallpox. This pock-marked 
man Ti would see sitting engraving the 
stone from which the next week's paper 



35 

was to be printed. The old-fashioned 
lithographic process was followed in get- 
ting out the paper. On the floor Ti 
would see scattered clippings from 
American or Chinese papers, and he 
would go away downstairs again, feeling 
how very ignorant he was, and how many, 
many things there were yet in this world 
for him to learn. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

THE WORD "SHU." 

HERE came a time when Ti 
was shocked out of his 
friendship for Yun. One 
afternoon, when Yun was 
going to the Chinese 
teachers' school, Ti was permitted to go, 
too, as a visitor. He had never been in a 
Chinese school, and he was very much im- 
pressed, as Yun knew he would be. There 
were two rooms of Chinese boys, studying 
under two Chinese teachers. Yun was in 
the room for less advanced scholars, but 
that made no difference with Ti's admira- 
tion for him. There were about twenty 
pupils in Yun's room. They were all 
boys, and they sat at desks and kept their 
hats on in the school-room. Some of the 
Chinese boys dressed in American clothes, 
but most wore their common, every-day 
dress. 

The teacher, a dignified Chinaman on 
the platform in front of the school, wore 
a somewhat long, dark blouse and green 
trousers that were fastened about his 



36 TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 

ankles. His cap had a red button on top, The speaker went immediately back to 

and from a hook beside the teacher hung his seat again. 

another blouse of his, lined with blue "See me, what I do!" said Yun to Ti. 
silk. With a proud heart Yun took his book 
Ti sat at a desk, and listened, and and went to the platform. Giving the 
looked. There was a great deal to listen teacher the book, he turned his back to 
to, for the Chinese boys studied out loud, him, as was proper in reciting from mem- 
It was rather startling when a boy who ory, and began a somewhat long recitation 
had been sitting listlessly at his desk in Chinese. Only once did the teacher 
would suddenly begin studying in a loud, have to correct him. Ti looked on in great 



shrill voice. But everybody was used to 
it. There was continually one boy after 
another carrying his brown paper book 




HOUND INK d-.ftC ~ 
U^ED IN frit 
CT1INESE: SCfl °t IN 5AN fRANClSCO' 



admiration. When should he ever be able 
to " back the book " like that? 

When Yun, proud of his success, came 
back to his seat, he proceeded further to 
impress Ti by preparing to write. Now 
Yun could not yet make Chinese charac- 
ters without tracing them, but Ti watched 
his method of writing with great respect. 
On his desk he had what looked a good 
deal like a round box of hard shoe-black- 
ing, such as bootblacks use. Yun's cake 
was not shoe-blacking at all, however, but 
of Chinese characters to the teacher's dry ink, such as the other Chinese boys 
platform. The teacher would mark a had. Toward one side of the round cake 
certain place in the book with a red pen- was a hole. 

cil, and the boy would begin to say the Yun left his desk, and, carrying the 
characters, and the teacher would go black cake of ink, went out the back door 
through with some sing-song recitation of the school-room. He returned with 
too, almost always, so that, taking the the hole in his ink-receptacle filled with 
teacher, and the boy that was reciting, water. Then he rubbed some of the 
and the dozen or so other boys that were water on his dry, round cake of ink. He 
studying aloud, there was much noise in took his book, which had leaves made of 
the room. Yet it was an orderly sort of white paper that looked as thin as tissue 
noise, after all. None of the pupils misbe- paper, and yet, for all their thinness, not 
haved. Once a boy left his seat and spoke one leaf was torn. On the leaves were 
a short sentence to another boy, but this many red or black Chinese characters. At 
seemed to be no infringement of rules, the left-hand end of the book were two of 



the transparent white leaves that had 
never been cut lengthwise. They were 
purposely left whole, though the top and 
bottom had been cut. In this way the 
two leaves made a kind of case. 

Between these leaves Yun slipped a 
loose sheet of Chinese characters. Of 
course the characters showed through the 
almost transparent white paper. Then 
he took an implement that looked much 
like a sharpened wooden pencil that had 
small Chinese characters on pink paper 
pasted around the handle end of the im- 
plement. Yun rubbed the point of this 
writing implement on the wet cake of ink, 
and began to trace the Chinese char- 
acters showing through the thin white 
paper. He did this work with great ac- 
curacy. 

Before going home, Ti obtained a peep 
into the other school-room where the 
older scholars were studying. The teacher 
of this room was not very pleasant-look- 
ing, he thought. He did not like that 
teacher so well as the one in Yun's room. 
This other teacher sat on a platform at 
the left-hand side of the room, instead of 
the front, and the scholars all had their 
hats on, and these boys studied out loud 
with more noise than the boys in the 
other room. On two desks were queer 
little green animals, made of some sort of 
ware, each looking somewhat like a horse 
with his head in the air. In the middle 
of the back of the " horse " was a round 
hole, for these animals were meant to con- 
tain water. If Yun had had such a 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 37 

" horse," he would not have had to carry 
his cake of ink out of the room to get 
water. 

Back of all the scholars in this second 
room was a little table. Ti knew the 
purpose of it at once. Above the table 
was a picture - frame containing a red 
paper with large Chinese characters. 
Some sort of pink drapery was about the 
picture-frame, and two stiff bunches of 
what might be called artificial flowers 
were above. On the table below were 
tiny splints in a vase. The whole was a 
Chinese shrine, in honor of idol-worship. 
" To make it to joss," was Yun's explan- 
ation of the shrine. 

As Ti, greatly impressed with his after- 
noon at the school, walked home with 
Yun, vainglorious Yun grew proudly 
boastful. Ti was so gentle and believing 
that he looked on these boastings as per- 
fect truth. But at last Yun went too far 
in his talk. He said something that 
startled Ti. 

" When I am a man, I shall know both 
English and Chinese," said he in Chinese 
proudly, " and I shall translate important 
news from the American newspapers for 
our honorable Chinese paper, as my 
father does now! Perhaps I shall be one 
of the men who look over the news of the 
steamers from China! I shall be very 
learned, and I shall be ten parts glad that 
I know so much! But your uncle will 
never know anything, for he gambles 
every night, so that he will never read a 
book, because every day he means to 



38 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



gamble again at night, and he is afraid 
of the word 'shii'!" 

Ti stared at Yun. " It is not true!" he 
exclaimed indignantly, for his uncle had 
been quite kind and had gained the boy's 
love. 

"Ask your uncle and see!" answered 
Yun tauntingly. " Does your uncle read 
a book any day? No, he gambles every 
night, and he is afraid of the word 
'shii'!" 

Ti stood and stared at Yun with great 
indignation. "My uncle is not afraid! 
My uncle is not a gambler!" he asserted, 
though he hardly knew what a gambler 
was, but guessed from Yun's words that 
it must be something discreditable. 

Yun laughed. " You come from a lit- 
tle fishing-hamlet, and you know noth- 
ing!" said he scornfully. " You live in 
the same house with your uncle, and you 
do not know that he is a gambler! Ask 
him and see! Ask him to say the word 
'shii'! He will not say it! Ask him! 
Every gambler fears the word ' shii 2 !" 

Ti began to run. He wanted to get 
away from these taunting words. He did 
not believe them. 

" Your uncle is afraid of reading a 
book!" Yun kept calling after him in Chi- 
nese. " Your uncle gambles every night, 
and he is afraid of the word 'shii'! I 
shall be much wiser than your uncle!" 

Ti would not listen to anything more 
Yun said. He ran home to the store, 
feeling as if he did not want to go to see 
him again. 



But alas! He found out that all Yun 
had said was true. His uncle was a great 
lover of gambling, and lost much money 
thereby. This was the reason why there 
often wa.s not much money in the house- 
hold, even though things in the store sold. 

Now, Chinese gamblers do not like to 
read books before playing, because the 
word "shii," meaning "book," sounds 
like the word " shii," meaning " to lose," 
and these gamblers are superstitious. 
They are careful not to speak any word 
considered unlucky, lest such utterance 
should make them lose money when they 
play. Ti noticed that his uncle in speak- 
ing of the almanac — a useful thing by 
which a Chinese may compute the lucky 
or unlucky days and know when to com- 
mence any enterprise — never mentioned 
the almanac by its name, "t'ung shii," 
for there was that ill-omened word " shii " 
again. So he called the almanac "kat 
sing," or "lucky stars." Alas! As he 
gambled every night, there did not come 
a day when he would not have considered 
it unlucky to read the Jesus book, because 
it was a book, " shii." So he refused to 
read it, -and was sometimes cross with Ti 
for asking. 

One night, when he went out to play 
the gambling game of " Fan T'an," he 
took Ti, too, to the gambling place. 
There were no bright colors in the inner 
fan fan cellar that the two entered 
through an outer cellar. There was 
white, the Chinese color of mourning, 
that makes players lose their money, and 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

the owners of the game gain the cash. Ti was very still. 



39 



He felt sorry, for 
There was a table covered with a mat, he knew it made his aunt angry to have 

his uncle lose money; and the teacher 
woman, after she learned that Ti knew 
his uncle gambled, told him that gam- 
bling was very, very bad. Ti thought the 
teacher was wise, and his aunt said so, 
too. 

The players in the gambling cellar were 
still. It is not customary to talk while 
playing. 

On the table there was a little pile of 
Chinese "cash," round coins with a 
square hole in the center of each piece. 
Ti looked on, while the T'an kiin took a 
handful of cash and put them under a 
brass cup, and the players wagered their 
money on the numbers on the tin square, 
the "spreading out square," t'an ching, 
in the middle of the table. 

Ti did not dare to say anything, every- 
body was so still. One Chinese player 
looked very downcast. On the way here 

and there were some chairs. Other men he had been jostled by somebody, and as 

secretly came in to play. Fan fan games 

were forbidden by law in this city of the 

Americans, but little Ti did not know it. 

The two owners of the game, the T'an 

kun, or " Euler of the Spreading Out," 

and the Ho kiin, or cashier, were there. 

The T'an kiin was a cross-looking China- 
man who stood by one side of the table, 

and the Ho kun was a crosser-looking 

Chinaman. 

TV>^ oV-~„j- j i , ., . Chinese Round Cash. 

Ine stout door between this cellar 
and the outer portion of the cellar was that is an unlucky sign according to Chi- 
nese gamblers' superstition, he had turned 




The Tan Kun. 




40 

back. But his desire to play fan fan had 
brought him here at last, though he 
looked as if he expected to lose money. 

Ti wished his uncle would come away 
from these men. He looked and saw that 
even the candles burning before the joss- 
shrine were white candles instead of red 
ones. There must be no color, excepting 
that which is supposed to be worn by the 
epirits of the dead. 

Some time passed and yet the foolish 
Chinese players were eagerly absorbed in 
their game. They still placed their 
money beside the fan ching in the center 
of the table, and the T ? an kiin counted the 
Chinese " cash " with the tapering rod of 
black wood used for this purpose. Over 
and over again the players wagered 
money, and Ti's uncle sometimes won and 
sometimes lost, but almost always lost. 
Some of the other men lost, too. Ti did 
not know that some of these Chinamen 
were employes in hotels, who sometimes 
in a single night lost all their money in 
fan fan games or Chinese lotteries. But 
he was troubled because of what the 
teacher woman had said. 

He slipped down on the floor and sat 
there, hiding his face. The eager players 
forgot him. 

" My uncle is doing bad," thought Ti. 
" He gives all his money to the fan fan 
men, and my aunt and the teacher woman 
are much sorry, and my uncle will never 
read the Jesus book, never! For he 
gambles every night, and he will not 
touch a book, and he is afraid of anything 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 

called 'shii.' So how will he ever read 
book, as the teacher woman 



the Jesus 
wished?" 

The fan fan game kept on in eager 
silence. Nobody thought of Ti, who 
crept under the table and went to sleep. 

The next thing Ti knew, he was waked 
by a jar and a loud noise. There were 
blows on the outer cellar door, as if it 
would be broken in, and there were 
American men's voices in the other cellar. 
The lights of the cellar Ti was in were all 
out. Crash! came the blows of axes on 
this cellar's outer door. 

" Uncle!" screamed Ti in Chinese. 

Wide awake now, and frightened at the 
strange sounds, he scrambled from under 
the table, and stretched out his hands, 
expecting to feel somebody. He felt only 
empty chairs! Crash! crash! came the 
axes. The frightened little boy ran 
around the dark room, calling his uncle 
amid the tumult of sounds. He found no- 
body. He stumbled over an overturned 
chair and fell, hurting himself a little. 

Ti lay where he had fallen, too fright- 
ened to rise. His heart beat so it gave 
him a feeling of suffocation. 

"Uncle! uncle!" he cried. 

Why were the lights all out? What 
did it all mean? Who was it that was 
trying to get in? Why had the Chinese 
all run away? Ti lay, a trembling, piti- 
ful little object, in the dark. To his hor- 
ror, the thick cellar door began to give 
out a splitting sound. He had faintly 
hoped that the door might be thick 



TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 



enough to keep the men out, whoever they 
were who were trying to get in. 

He sprang up and ran wildly around in 
the dark, stretching out his hands and 
feeling no one to help him in his terror. 
He fell over chairs, he picked him- 
self up, he cried out in fear. He did 
not know what was coming. There was 
so much noise that his voice was unheard 
by those men who were forcing their 
way in. 

" Where is my uncle?" sobbed the 
scared child in Chinese. 

The crashing and the sound of splint- 
ering wood was terrifying. The door was 
giving way. 

"Bad men come in and catch me!" 
thought Ti, his heart thumping and a 
lump coming in his throat. 

He found the table again and crawled 
under it. He waited, shivering. He did 
not know how to get out of the room. 
He and his uncle had come in by the now 
attacked door. 



41 

The frightened child shuddered. He 
had no doubt that he would be instantly 
killed. 




CHAPTER VII. 

THE OUTCOME FOR TI. 

SNE of the policemen who had 
^™ entered the room where the 



game was going on held up 
his lantern a moment. The 
room was apparently empty. 
No implements of fan t'an were visible. 
The players were gone. Nobody saw the 
little boy under the table. 

" Stay by the door, Jim! They've 
run!" said one man hastily; and one 
policeman stayed, while the others ran 
through the cellar into the passageway. 

Under the table, in the dark once 
more, Ti crouched and trembled. In a 
few minutes he heard distant blows as of 



axes again on wood. He could not under- 
In the dark the little boy stand what was happening. He did not 



could not see to escape. He could only 
crouch under the table, too frightened to 
attempt to search further for any passage- 
way out of the room. There was not 
time. He must hide. 

There was a great final crash. The 
stout cellar door gave way. Ti caught his 
breath. A flash of light illumined the 
dark room, and some men came in 
through the broken door. 

It seemed to Ti that the men would see 
him the first thing. Oh, what would they 
do with him when they found him? 



know that when the policemen, who were 
making a raid on Chinatown fan fan 
games, had followed the passage for a dis- 
tance, they were suddenly confronted 
with some thick iron bars that crossed the 
passage and forbade further advance. 
When the Ho kiin and the T'an kiin and 
the excited players of fan fan, alarmed 
over the police, had fled, forgetting Ti 
asleep under the table, they had escaped 
through these bars. There was a secret 
spring that the Ho kun and the T'an kiin 
knew, and if this spring were touched, 



42 TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 

the iron bars would be raised out of the men coming back to the cellar. They had 
men's way and they could pass through, given up their search in the farther rooms. 
fleeing in haste from the police. But the They had found the Ho kun, and had 
bars had immediately been put in place recognized him as a man who was believed 
again, and as the policemen did not know to know something about some fan fan 
where the secret spring was, the only way schemes, but there was no proof against 
they could go on in the passage was to him. So they could do nothing except 
chop down the posts to which the bars order the Ho kun to go back to the cellar 
were attached. This took a little time, with them. If no evidences of fan fan 
and the gamblers would have opportunity could be found there, the Ho kun would 
to conceal themselves or get out of the be unmolested further, 
house by the many intricate passages. The policemen and the Ho kun re-en- 

The policemen at length chopped their tered the cellar. Ti crouched under the 
way and went on, but they did not find table. 

what they sought. In some of the " Why didn't somebody open the cellar 
crowded little rooms of the building were door, then, when we first came?" a po- 
Chinese quietly sitting, playing on little liceman was demanding of the Ho kun. 
musical instruments such as the Chinese If Ti could have seen the Ho kun's 
use, but no evidences of fan fan or other face, the little boy might have noticed 
games were in sight. Search as they that it did not look nearly as animated 
might, the policemen could find nothing, as it had looked during the fan fan game. 

All this time, Ti was hiding under the The man had put on a very stupid and 
table, back in the cellar. From under sleepy look. 

the table he peered fearfully out toward "Why?" repeated the Ho kun sleepily, 
the dark, for he knew that one policeman "Why? Keep door shut nights, evely 
was there. This one had no lantern, night." 

Everything was dark and the policeman The police began to search among the 
kept so dreadfully quiet! Not a sound chairs and about the room, but all the im- 
came from him. He was waiting, ready plements of fan fan had vanished. Even 
to catch any Chinaman, Ti knew. He the table's mat was gone. Where was the 
was so afraid of that policeman! He did tin " spreading out square," " fan ching," 
not know that a policeman might be the and the brass cup, " fan koi," and the 
friend of a little Chinese boy who was not tapering black rod, " fan pong "? Where 
at all to blame for a fan fan game, but was the "cash"? Ah! all these things 
had been brought here by his uncle. Poor had been caught up and run away with, 
little Ti! How scared he was! The Ho kun felt sure that the police 

After a while he heard the other police- would never find the implements of fan 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



43 



fan where he had hidden them, and he 
remained ' tranquil, for he knew nothing 
to condemn him was in the cellar. 
- The policemen searched diligently and 
found nothing but Ti. It was a dreadful 
moment of discovery to the little boy. A 
policeman, seeing him under the table, 
drew him forth. 

"Who's this?" he asked. 

" LiF boy," said the Ho bin blandly. 
" Nice liF boy." 

Ti burst into a loud wail of terror. The 
big policeman had children of his own at 
home. He did not want to scare this 
child. 

" Well," said he, not unkindly, " you're 
in the wrong place, little chap. Don't 
cry, little fellow." 

Then the policeman turned to the 
Ho ktin. "What's your name?" he de- 
manded. 



similarity in sound to one of his names. 
Besides, what sounded as if it were Wo 
Ki's first name — according to American 
ideas — was in reality not his first but his 
surname, since Chinese put their surname 
first. It is as if one said " Smith Char- 
lie " instead of Charlie Smith. 

The police kept hunting, but the Ho 
kun assured them, " You look. You see. 
No fan fan. Me no sabe fan fan." 

The Ho kiin had never had any Chris- 
tian training. All his life he had lived 
in heathen darkness. He did not speak 
the truth to the police about the fan fan 
game. 

But they did not believe his words. 
"Yes, you do sabe about fan fan!" as- 
serted one of them scornfully. "You 
know well enough about fan fan! Didn't 
you hear about that Chinaman down at 
Los Angeles, who ran a fan fan game, and 



" Wo Ki," answered the other, telling was arrested, and had to put up two hun- 
the truth, for of course "Ho kun" was dred dollars' bail?" 



only his official title as cashier of the fan 
fan game. 

" Well," said the policeman, " Wo Ki, 
I'd like to see you in jail, for I haven't 
the slightest doubt that you've had a fan 
fan game running here. But if I can't 
find proof of it to-night, I know well 
enough you've had it; and let me warn 
you now, that if you don't quit such busi- 
ness, the first part of your name will come 
true!" 

Wo Ki did not know exactly what that 
meant, since he was not familiar enough 
with the Ensrlish word " woe " to know its 



The Ho kun did not look as if he were 
aw r are what the word " bail " means. No 
one could look very much more stupid 
than he could when he tried. 

The policemen were very loath to give 
up the search. They examined every- 
thing closely, hoping to find some secret 
place where the fan fan implements 
might have been hidden. But the Ho 
kun and the T'an kun had known better 
than to hide such things in the cellar. 
Frightened Ti, crouching again under- 
neath the table, cried silently, and dared 
not look out. But the policemen did not 



44 



disturb him again. 

stand all the English the policemen 

talked. 

But the Ho kiin was very sleepy and 
very stupid, until the policemen, giving 
up the search as useless, went out of the 
cellar door, through the outer cellar into 
the street, and away from the build- 
ing. Then the Ho kun began to try to 
fasten the broken door as well as pos- 
sible. Having finished, he turned to Ti, 
who was crouching trembling behind 
some chairs. 

If Ti had been scared before in the 
presence of the policemen, he was al- 
most more frightened now at being left 
alone with the Ho kun. He broke into 
sobs again. Where was his uncle? 

"No cly! You come," said the Ho 
kiin. 

But the little boy fled. He rushed 
away from the Ho kiin through the pass- 
age the police had traversed. No bars 
prevented him from running on, for the 
police had cut down the posts. Ti 
stumbled over them, though, on the floor. 
He sprang up again and ran. He won- 
dered why he had not dared to run while 
the Ho kiin was fixing the cellar door. He 
had been too alarmed to think of running, 
then. 

The Ho kiin followed through the 
winding way. Ti was beside himself with 
terror. He ran desperately through the 
dark, bumping into partitions. His heart 
was beating heavily. Oh, if he could only 
get away from this dreadful, following Ho 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 

Ti could not under- kun! He wanted to cry so he could 



hardly keep down his sobs. A light was 
coming behind him. By it, before the 
Ho kun came in sight of the boy, Ti 
spied a little nook between two partitions. 
Trembling, he crowded himself into the 
narrow space and lay still. 

On came the footsteps of the dreadful 
Ho kiin. Ti held his breath. He was 
sure he would be found, and then what 
would become of him? 

The light from the taper the Ho kun 
carried fell on his hardened face, as he 
hurried along the passageway. Ti's 
frightened eyes looked out at the man, 
who was calling, " Come! You come!" 

The light was dim and the Ho kun did 
not see Ti in his nook. He hurried on, 
imagining the child was somewhere 
ahead. The little boy, left in the dark 
again, hardly dared breathe. The foot- 
steps died away. 

"He is walking softly," thought Ti. 
" He thinks he will find me and catch me. 
I am so afraid of him! He will come 
back when he does not find me. He will 
come back and find me here. I shall 
never see my father and my uncle and my 
aunt again. I am so afraid!" 

He crawled out of the nook where he 
had hidden, and crept back along the 
passage. He wanted to go where the Ho 
kiin would not come, wherever that might 
be. 

In moving through the dark, Ti found 
a narrow passageway that turned off from 
the one by which he had come. He 



II: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 



stumbled over some jars standing in the 
passage. He tried to hurry on, but it was 
of no use. The Ho kiin, not having 
heard the child for a while, had been 
standing listening, and now came running 
back. He rushed down the passage and 
caught Ti, who screamed with terror. 

But the Ho kun's big hand guided the 
little boy, by many queer, narrow pass- 
ages, through to the other side of the 
building. There at a door opening into 
an alley, Ti's cowardly uncle who had run 
away from him, was waiting. 

"No cly, no cly!" said the Ho kun; 
and Ti, seeing his uncle, tried to stop 
sobbing. 

The uncle took Ti, and they slipped 
into the alley and hurried home. But 
when they reached the rooms above the 
back of his uncle's store, Ti cried all his 
frightened little heart out in his aunt's 
sympathizing arms. He did not want to 
stay in the city another minute! No, he 
wished to go straight back to his father 
and the fishing village. Oh, fan fan 
was bad, bad, and there had been police- 
men! 

The child wept and would not be com- 
forted. He shrank from his uncle, who 
was so ashamed, or else so reluctant to 
lose the little fellow's confidence, that, 
going into the store, he got a pretty imi- 
tation red fish, made of cloth, and 
brought it back and gave it to him to 
wear with a crimson tassel as an orna- 
ment on the right-hand side of his blouse. 
The fish was pretty, but Ti could not re- 



45 

cover from his fright. He cried himself 
to sleep, and during the next few days he 
kept begging so to be allowed to go back 
to the fishing-hamlet that his aunt and 
uncle were at a great loss how to make 
him contented to stay. They did not wish 
that he should go. They missed their 
own little children too much. 

But now the teacher saw her oppor- 
tunity to gain that which she had been 
refused before, though she had often re- 
quested it. 

" If you will let Ti go to our school," 
she said, " he will see so many other little 
Chinese children that he will be happy 
and will not be lonesome. It will be 
much better for him than crying here at 
home and wishing he were at the fishing 
village. Do you not see it will? Won't 
you try it a while and see if we can't 
make Ti happy? The little children 
seem so happy and contented in our 
school." 

The teacher dared speak longer and 
more urgently now than she had done 
heretofore, because she could see that Ti's 
uncle was in a humiliated frame of mind 
over his having frightened the child so 
badly. He had not intended that the 
visit to the fan fan game should end so 
disastrously. How was he to have known 
that the police would choose that night 
for a raid? He well knew that Ti's father 
would have been angry to see his son in a 
fan fan cellar. Ti might tell a woeful 
story to his father if he were allowed to 
go back to the fishing-hamlet just now. 



46 



Yet that other little boy who went to the 
teacher woman's school had not liked to 
put up incense sticks afterwards. That 
was the danger in sending children to the 
Christians' school. 

Ti's uncle thought of this, but he 
reasoned that something must be done to 
keep the little boy more contented. Fi- 
nally he said, " Yes, I let Ti go to school 
now," and the heart of the teacher was 
glad. 

" Oh," she said to herself, " it was a 
good day when poor little Ti came from 
his fishing village down to this city! He 
is so bright. He will listen and learn to 
understand what we tell him, and will 
come to know Jesus for himself. If only 
we can have him a little while, and his 
father doesn't call him back to that fish- 
ing village, how much bright little Ti will 
learn!" 

But Ti's aunt, Ah Cheng, did not know 
whether to be glad or sorry that he was 
going to attend the teacher woman's 
school. She thought about it a while, 
and then after the teacher was gone, she 
went to the old picture of the goddess of 
mercy, and poured out tea before the pic- 
ture from the little teapot that was used 
for this purpose, and burned incense. 

Yet even after worshiping, Aunt Ah 
Cheng went about her work troubled and 
afraid about the little boy's going to the 
teacher woman's school. She did not 
know how blessed a crisis in Ti's life this 
going to the Christians' school would 
prove to be. 



TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 

CHAPTER VIII. 




THE JESUS TEACHERS' SCHOOL. 

T WAS Ti's first afternoon at 
school. Around him in the 
school-room sat other little 
3^^" Chinese children, boys and 
girls. Some of the little girls 
wore red, yellow-figured head-dresses that 
fitted over the upper part of the forehead 
and went around to the back of the head. 
These head-dresses had green borders and 
were somewhat like hats with the crowns 
cut out. 

One little boy near him wore a cap with 
some Chinese words on the front of it. 
The words meant " Peace be with you in 
your going in and coming out." Another 
little boy wore a cap that said "Bless- 
ings " in Chinese. This boy had bracelets 
of jade on his chubby wrists, and one of 
the teachers came and asked him to take 
off the " Blessings " cap. The other lit- 
tle boy whose cap said the wish about 
peace had to take off his head-covering, 
too. 

Most of the children in Ti's room were 
quite a little younger than he; so young 
that their heathen parents thought the 
children could not learn anything. But 
the children did learn. Some of the little 
ones sat on tiny low stools about a 
rectangular bin of sand, and played in the 
sand with long tin spoons. One chubby 
little Chinese girl, who lifted sand with a 
long spoon, could sing very well in her 
sweet baby voice a song that begins with 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



47 



the words, " Up, up in the sky the little 
birds fly/' and finishes with the words, 




" Our heavenly Father, how kind and how 
good." 

At some of the low tables sat other 
little girls with paper-weaving. One girl's 
queue was finished with braided pink and 
green and yellow and blue, and then 
wound on the back of her head so it 
looked like one of the flat table-mats that 
are sometimes woven by American chil- 
dren by aid of pins and thread of dif- 
ferent colors. The Chinese children's 
blue and red colored shoes showed under 
the low tables. One "little boy had read 



entirely through the First Chinese Book. 
It was a brown paper book with a red 
cover on one side, and Ti was determined 
that he would become as smart as that 
other little boy! He was glad, though, 
that he was to learn in this school instead 
of the one that Yun attended. He did 
not like to go with Yun any more, because 




he kept speaking teasingly of his uncle's 
gambling. 

Ti saw in the school-room before him a 
big chart with what he afterwards discov- 



48 



ered was the Lord's Prayer in English, 
and on the walls were two strips of cloth, 
lettered with two texts written in Chinese 
and English. The texts were, " For God 
so loved the world, that he gave his only 
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
him should not perish, but have everlast- 
ing life," and, " Believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 

Ti sat and listened as the children re- 
cited. He did not feel lonesome here or 
afraid. But how much the other Chinese 
children knew! The teacher — not the 
same one who had brought him to the 
school, but another with just as pleasant 
a face — stood before the children and 
asked in Chinese: 

" Does Jesus love the little children ?" 
and the children answered: 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

Ti did not know that these were words 
from the Jesus book, the book that his 
uncle would not read. 

" What else does Jesus say?" asked the 
teacher; and the children answered: 





u Come unto me, all ye that are weary 
and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." 

Ti listened. Where had he heard those 
last words before? The other words that 
the children said were new, but somehow 
he seemed to remember something about 
those last words. He did not know what 
it was. He did not remember that those 
had been the words on the red paper he 
" Suffer little children to come unto had given old See Yow at the fishing 



me/ 



village. 



Then she 



But now the children 
loves me." Ti did not know what the 
teacher was thinking of, that she should 
look so sober while the children sang that 
song. But when the song was ended she 
told them that she was thinking of a little 
three-year-old Chinese girl who had been 
playing around in a missionary's study. 
The little girl hummed the words of 
"Jesus loves me" to herself, 
stopped. "He don't 
love me!" said the 
child firmly to her- 
self. "He don't! He 
don't!" The lady 
missionary over- 
heard, and told the 
little Chinese girl 
that Jesus did love 
her. The little girl 
answered, " My 
mamma don't love 
him! She don't! She 
don't! She don't!" 

The teacher said 
there were many 
Chinese parents who 
do not love Jesus. 
She wished all the boys and girls in her 
school might learn to love him while they 
were still children. 

Ti heard a great deal of talk against the 
Jesus religion, at home, but he loved that 
teacher who had helped him when he was 
sick, and he listened very carefully to all 
that was said. Something told him that 
the Jesus teacher woman and such men 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 49 

lg, "Jesus as the T'an kun and the Ho kun were 



very far apart. He did not want his uncle 
to become such a man as the T'an kiin 
or the Ho kun was. 

In fact, on 
this first day of 
school, Ti re- 
ceived a good 
many new im- 




cause the teacher did 
not have to talk to 
the children in 
English, but could explain things in Chi- 
nese. Yes, he heard a great many new 
things to-day. 

When the teacher took the little boy 
home after school, she said to him, " Did 
you like school, Ti? Will you go to-mor- 



?» 



row, again j 

Ti nodded, smiling. 
The teacher's heart 



rejoiced. She 



50 



TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 



looked up at the tall building across the 
street in this Chinese quarter. She saw a 
Chinese Voy angrily strike a child in a bal- 
cony. She saw an old Chinese man look- 
ing out of a window, a pipe in his mouth. 
She saw the dragon flag of China flying in 




the breeze, with the emblems of one of 
the Chinese "tongs." High on one 
building there was a large sign in English 
words, though full of Chinese heathen 
meaning. The sign read: 



Chow Loon, 

4 FAMILY 
PARENTAL 
Tablet Society. 



j 



And she thought of the light burning 
before the ancestral tablet in Ti's home, 
and in many other homes. And as she 
held the little boy's hand, she prayed in 
her heart that though he lived in dark- 
ness, yet that he might learn the truth. 

" What did yon learn to-day?" said his 



aunt to Ti, after the teacher had left him 
at home. 

But the child could not tell what he 
had learned. He could not put his new 
impressions into words. 

" You did not learn anything!" said his 
aunt. 

"Nei kong tai wa," ("You do not 
speak the truth,") said Ti's uncle, who 
was at home and in a bad humor. " He 
has learned something and he will not tell 
us what it is! He will grow up to be like 
the Yesoo Yan!" 

The "Yesoo Yan," or "Jesus man," 
was a Chinese shoemaker Ti's uncle knew. 
The shoemaker had become a Christian. 

" His father will be very angry," went 
on the uncle crossly. " And I am angry! 
Ti shall not grow up to be like the Yesoo 
Yan! If he must go to that school, he 
shall go with me, too, wherever I will take 
him! Nei kong tai wa! He has learned 
something, and he will not tell us what 
it is!" 

Ti tried to think what he had learned. 
But he found no words to express himself. 

The uncle laughed, but looked at the 
little boy suspiciously. Who knew what 
the Jesus teachers had told him to-day? 

"You shall go with me," he said, and 
the next afternoon he took Ti to a joss- 
house. The joss-house consisted of some 
rooms, reached by flight after flight of 
narrow, dirty stairs. Up and up climbed 
the child and his uncle till they came to 
the top story of the building. In a little 
ante-room sat the temple-keeper, who 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 

sold the articles used in temple idol wor- 
ship, such as candles, incense sticks, 
paper money, and paper clothes. 

Ti's uncle bought of the temple- 
keeper an offering and the service of 
one of the temple-keeper's assistants. 

Then the 
two pro- 
ceeded to 
worship. The 
assistant beat 
on a drum to 
wake the 
gods. On a 
frame was 
hung a bell 
that the as- 
sistant might 
have used for 
the same pur- 
pose as the 
drum. There 
was a plat- 
form at the 
side of the 
wall in the 
joss - house, 
and six idols 
were waiting 
to be wor- 
shiped. The 

idols were of wood or plaster, and there 
was a glass lantern hanging in front of 
the gods, and in a box at their feet was 
sand, in which were small sticks of paper 
and sandalwood burning. There was also 
tea, ready made, in front of the gods. 




in the Joss-house. 



51 

Ti's uncle sought the queer-shaped 
divining blocks, and threw them till they 
fell, one with its oval and the other with 
its flat side to the floor. This 
manner of falling was propitious. 
Then the sacred jar of bamboo 
splints was 
shaken till 
one splint fell 
to the floor. 
Each splint 
was n u in- 
hered to cor- 
respond with 
numbers i n 
the temple- 
keeper's book 
o f prayers. 
The assistant, 
with a brush 
pen, took the 
number of 
Ti's uncle's 
splint and 
gave it to 
the temple- 
keeper, who 
in turn gave 
the answer 
according to 
the number. 
About the walls and on the curtains 
were Chinese inscriptions in red and gilt 
and crimson. After making offerings 
and worshiping, the two went away from 
the crimson curtains and the images and 
the rows of brilliant banners and bronze 



52 



fans, down the stairs again to the city- 
street. The temple-keeper's assistant had 
lighted the paper money and carried it to 
burn in an oven kept for that purpose. 

" You shall not grow up to be a Yesoo 
Yan!" said the uncle in Chinese to the 
little boy as they went home. 
"You shall grow up to worship 
the gods!" 

Yet, because of his prom- 
ise to the teacher, Ti's uncle 
did not forbid the little boy's 
going to the Christian 
school. He would not like 
to have the charge, " You do 
not speak the truth," applied 
to him. He had said that 
Ti might go, and the promise 
should not be broken. He 
took the child diligently to 
the Chinese joss-house on 
succeeding days, and one 
day, in a certain joss- 
house, he showed Ti a 
little side shrine for 
those dead Chinese per- 
sons who have no sons 
or other relatives in 
this world to offer 
prayers or incense 
in the dead persons' 
names. To this 
shrine charitable 

Chinese, who were not related to the 
dead, would come and lay offerings under 
the tablets that bore the names of the de- 
ceased persons. Otherwise the "wander- 



TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 

ing ghosts " of such persons are supposed 
to have no rest in the next world. Under 
some of the tablets bearing the names of 




women 



this 



Before the Shrine. 



shrine, Ti saw fans 
and jewelry such 

as a Chinese woman might use in this life. 
The uncle kept the little boy long 

enough before this shrine to impress the 

child. 



" See," he said, " what would be, if you 
grow up to be a Jesus man! Your father 
has no other son. When your father dies, 
there will be nobody to burn incense for 
him, if you are a believer in the Jesus 
religion. You will leave your father to 
be prayed for at this shrine, and people 
will forget to do it. Yes, they will forget! 
You will leave your father all alone, all 
alone!" 

The uncle's tone was very reproachful, 
and little Ti felt very sober. Surely he 
would never leave his father, his dear 
father, to be one of the poor, wandering, 
forgotten ghosts of the next world. He 
loved his father, and he went away from 
the joss-house thinking grave thoughts 
for so little a fellow. No wonder that 
some of the Chinese children shut their 
mouths tightly and shook their heads, 
when the teacher woman spoke about 
Jesus. 

Yet, though Ti did not mean ever to 
neglect his father, the little boy could 
not disbelieve what the kind teacher said 
about Jesus loving little children. And 
he was afraid to go with his uncle to the 
joss-houses, for fear the uncle might on 
the way go to some gambling place, and 
he might again see the T'an kiin or the 
Ho kun. It is very difficult to trust one's 
uncle entirely, after being once terrified 
by his acts. Ti would rather be with the 
teacher who had been so good to him 
when he was sick. 

His uncle, however, was quite satisfied 
that he had greatly impressed the child. 



TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 53 

" He will not be a Yesoo Yan," said the 
uncle to himself with a satisfied feeling 
of certainty. "No, he will not! He 
loves his father too well. I am glad I 
have showed him that shrine!" 

And from that hour the vigilance of 
Ti's uncle began to relax. He did not 
know that despite what man may say or 
do in opposition, God's word, when faith- 
fully taught, will have an effect. Ti was 
having very faithful, tender teaching in 
these days at the school. 

And Ah Cheng, too, was beginning to 
think very differently. For when the 
teacher came each day to bring the boy 
to and from school, she often stopped to 
talk with Ah Cheng about Jesus. 




CHAPTER IX. 



TI'S TENTH BIRTHDAY*. 



HAD been going to school 
for some time. The teacher 
came one day to take him 
there as usual. Her eyes 
were red. Ti could see that 
she had been crying. He wondered why. 
She looked as his aunt looked sometimes, 
when his uncle had thrown away all the 
money gambling and had come home cross 
and struck her. 

He did not like to see anyone unhappy. 
The teacher, however, did not say any- 
thing about why she had been crying. 
She tried to control her trembling lips, 
and she did not talk about anything, all 



54 



the time that Ti and she were going to 
school together. 

"When they came to the school-room, 
they found themselves quite early. The 
other scholars had not come yet. 

Inside the school-room, Ti began to in- 
terest himself in some paper-folding that 
the children did. Suddenly, something 
made him look up, and he saw that the 
teacher was crying. He dropped the 
paper-folding, and ran to her and pulled 
at her sleeve. 

" No cly," (cry) begged the little fellow 
gently. "Wha' fo' you cly?" 

The teacher could not talk for a 
minute. Then she sat down, and Ti 
stood beside her, while she told him, 
partly in Chinese and partly in English, 
what had happened. He could under- 
stand a good deal of English now. The 
teacher told him that a poor Chinese girl 
who was brought to a mission Home had 
been dying of consumption, and she had 
said to a teacher, " I am dying. Stay 
with me." The sick girl could not under- 
stand English, but some other Chinese 
girls told her of Jesus and heaven. She 
had had a hard, sorrowful life, and now 
she listened and said that she would try 
to trust in Him. But after a while she 
said, " Oh, I am afraid I cannot under- 
stand the way." Then one of the Chi- 
nese girls prayed with her and tried to 
tell her how to talk to Jesus herself, so 
she might feel he was with her and wanted 
to comfort her. But the poor dying girl 
lay still a little while, and then said, " I 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

am afraid the door of heaven will be shut. 
It will not open for me! I cannot see the 
way! Who will lead me?" 

They prayed for her and told her Jesus 
would lead her to heaven and see that the 
door was open for her. After that she 
lay still for a time with closed eyes, then 
suddenly she opened her eyes, her face lit 
up with joy, and she cried, " I see the 
way! Jesus is with me and the door of 
heaven is open! It is all beautiful there! 
Oh, how beautiful!" and, almost instantly, 
she died. 

" Oh, Ti!" said the teacher, as the tears 
ran down her face, " I am so glad the poor 
girl found Jesus before she died! She 
had had such a hard life, but when she 
heard of Jesus she believed, and I know 
she did find the gates of heaven open. 
But there are so many others that don't 
know about Jesus! Chinese girls and boys 
and women and men, Ti! I want you to 
know and love Jesus while you are a little 



boy. Won't you? So many Chinese 
don't know Jesus. We teachers do all we 
can, but we are so few, and there are so 
many to be told!" 

The teacher bowed her head on her 
hands and sobbed. Then came the sound 
of the steps of other scholars, and she 
stopped crying, and turned to the little 
pupils. 

But Ti's tender heart had been touched. 
He did not know that all that day there 
rang in the teacher's ears the words of 
that dying Chinese girl, " I am afraid the 
door of heaven will be shut. It will not 



open for me! I cannot see the way. Who 
will lead me?" To the teacher it was the 
cry of hundreds on hundreds of souls she 
was unable to reach. She felt as if her 
heart would break. She did not know 
that what she had said to one little Chi- 
nese boy this day wouid stay in his mem- 
ory. She had said, " Oh, Ti, I want you 
to know and love Jesus while you are a 
little boy," and Ti's attentive heart had 
opened to that appeal. 

He had been learning every day in the 
months he had attended this school. He 
no longer went home without being able 
to tell his aunt what he had learned. She 
asked him every day, and now he could 
tell her little texts he had learned in Chi- 
nese. Very short texts they were, but the 
aunt, as is often the way with Chinese 
women, believed more the word brought 
to her by childish lips than what the mis- 
sionary woman had said. 
• One night when the aunt asked Ti the 
usual question, " What did you learn to- 
day?' 7 he answered, " Honor father and 
mother," and she was much pleased that 
he had had such teaching in school, for 
the Chinese believe strongly in the honor- 
ing of fathers and mothers. 

Ti's uncle had forgotten his first fear 
lest the little boy should grow up a be- 
liever in Jesus. He was absorbed in his 
own affairs, and he thought that the child 
was too young to learn very much at 
school, after all. So he let him go, with- 
out fear. 

But Ti was learning more than either 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 55 

his uncle or his aunt guessed, although at 
home he of course had to see much 
heathenism, and one day, when the 
teacher called to take him to school, Ti 
was not at home. He was absent from 
school that day, because he had to go with 
his uncle and a number of Chinese men 
and women to the Chinese cemetery, out 
by the sand dunes near the ocean. They 
rode there in express wagons, which also 
carried provisions. Ti saw that the 
cemetery was divided by white fences into 
inclosures. His uncle told him that each 
inclosure was for a separate " tong," as 
the Ye On Tong, or the Tung San Tong. 
A small wooden altar was before each plot, 
and the provisions were taken from the 
wagons and laid on these altars. There 
were a number of whole, roasted pigs, 
decorated with colored papers and rib- 
bons. 

The Chinese bowed before the graves, 
and set off a good many firecrackers, and 
burned packages of colored papers, and 
the roast pigs standing on the altars soon 
looked out through air that was filled with 
smoke. Then the people went back to 
the city for a feast, since this was the 
twenty-fourth day of the second month 
of the Chinese year, the time of the Tsing 
Ming — " pure and resplendent " — fes- 
tival, when the Chinese believe that the 
gates of the tomb are thrown open and 
the spirits of the dead are permitted to 



revisit the earth. Ti's aunt thought 
about her two little children, Whan and 
Hop, who bad died, and she went to the 



56 



TI: A S10BY OF CHINATOWN. 



cemetery with the other women and men. 
But though Ti did not know any better 
than to think it was right to make these 
many offerings at the graves, yet he did 
know and remember what the teacher 
woman had said about the gates of heaven 
opening for the sick girl, and his aunt 
cried when he told her. 

The next day, when the teacher came 
to take the little boy to school, his aunt 
told why he had not been able to go the 
previous day. The teacher listened sadly. 
She knew how much of heathen customs 
surrounded the child. But Ah Cheng 
looked at the teacher at last and said hesi- 
tatingly, " Ti say the gates of heaven 
opened for the sick girl." 

The teacher's heart rejoiced that the 
little lad had told his aunt. 

"Yes, Ah Cheng, Ti is right. The 
gates opened for her, I am sure. She 
loved the Jesus who first loved us. And 
he loves the little ones." 

These and many other words of comfort 
the teacher said that day as she lovingly 
talked with the mother. 

"I am so glad we are keeping Ti so 
long!" thought the teacher joyfully. " So 
many parents take their boys out of 
school, but we are keeping him." 

Ti himself had no intention of leaving 
the school. There was a class of older 
Chinese boys downstairs, and they had 
another teacher, and sang hymns in Chi- 
nese, and read Chinese books, and were 
very wise, Ti thought. Sometimes they 
sang in English, and one song they sang 



was, "Do you know what makes us 
ha.ppy? We are little friends of Jesus." 

Ti could sing that song himself, and he 
meant it; only he never dared sing it 
where his uncle could hear. 

The months slipped by till Ti was over 
nine years old. His father had several 
times wanted to take him back to the 
fishing village, but the uncle and the aunt 
begged to have him left with them, and 
the father reluctantly consented. So he 
stayed, and the Christian teaching went 
on. 

Then there came a day that brought sad 
tidings to Ti. His father had been 
drowned in the bay, not far from the Chi- 
nese fishing-hamlet. He would never see 
his father alive again. 

The little boy cried bitterly, for he 
loved his father. For a little while he 
was taken from school, and the teacher 
was very anxious, for she was afraid his 
uncle would never let him come back 
again. His mother had died several years 
ago, when he was quite small, and now he 
would probably live continually with his 
aunt and uncle, and the teacher knew 
that the uncle did not like the school. 

But after a while, Ti came back to 
school with a sober little face and a small 
white cord, as an emblem of mourning, 
braided into his queue. The teacher 
knew that at his uncle's home the child 
was made to worship before the ancestral 
tablet, into which, according to Chinese 
belief, it was supposed that part of the 
spirit of Ti's father had entered. The 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



57 



Chinese think that every spirit has three 
parts, one that goes with the body to the 
grave, one part that goes like vapor to 
heaven, and a third part that stays in the 
ancestral tablet. The teacher was sorry 
that Ti had to worship before the tablet 
on which his father's name was now writ- 
ten. She conld not help it, but she tried 
to teach and comfort the little boy as well 
as she conld. 

" God grant that Ti may love Christ!" 
she prayed daily as the months went by. 
And at last she came to believe that her 
prayer was answered. She felt sure that, 
though Ti was a Chinese boy, he had 
really begun to know Jesus and was every 
day learning to love and trust him more, 
and that he was asking for help to do 
right. 

Ti's tenth birthday came. He had 
learned very rapidly in school. He had 
long ago read through the First Chinese 
Book, and had been promoted to the more 
advanced room downstairs. He had 
learned and believed so much of gospel 
truth by this time that his uncle would 
have been much alarmed and very angry 
if he had known it. But the truth was, 
the uncle was becoming so inveterate a 
gambler that he had little thought or care 
for anything else. He was growing to 
smoke opium, also, and he was going 
down morally and intellectually. He did 
not know that for many months, now, Ti 
had been praying to Jesus. The little boy 
never put up the incense sticks before the 
idols, of his own accord, now, though his 



aunt wished to insist on his keeping up 
the ancestral worship. He tried to avoid 
doing that. Every few days mock-paper 
money and perhaps paper meant to rep- 
resent clothing were burned before the 
ancestral tablet. It seemed to Aunt Ah 
Cheng a dreadful thing if Ti's father 
should be neglected now that he was dead! 
And the teacher knew that her little pupil 
was sometimes commanded to do things 
contrary to what she had taught him. 
One day Ti asked her if the gifts he of- 
fered could reach his father in the next 
world, and if it was true that his father's 
spirit was in the ancestral tablet. 

" No, Ti, one of your father's spirits i9 
not in the ancestral tablet. The Chinese 
are mistaken about that. But I am glad 
you love your father, who is gone, and 
think often of him; and Jesus is glad you 
love him. You cannot help him by of- 
fering gifts before the tablet, but you can 
talk to Jesus about your father, and he 
can comfort you and help you to do right 
in your home." 

Ti listened, with his sober eyes intent 
on his teacher's, and she saw that the ten- 
year-old boy thought deeply. He avoided 
ancestral worship all he could. 

"I am so glad Ti is growing up with 
us!" thought the teacher. u I hope we 
shall keep him. We have had him up- 
wards of two years." 




58 



CHAPTEE X 




TI DISAPPEARS. 

^KE day Ti stepped out of his 
uncle's store and went a little 
way on the street. Almost 
all of his acquaintances were 
heathen, not Christian, Chi- 
nese. He passed the old man who sat on 
a box on the sidewalk mending an opium 
pipe (jin ten), and passed also the other 
man who cobbled Chinese shoes on the 
sidewalk. He went across the street. 
There sat the fortune - teller behind 
his red - covered, ink - stained table as 
usual. 

Ti was thinking of something he had 
heard lately at his mission Sunday-school 
about fortune-telling. The teacher had 
said that a fortune-teller could not know 
any more about what was going to happen 
in the future than other persons did. The 
fortunes he pretended to tell must be lies, 
and Ti knew that lying and deceit were 
wrong. 

The fortune-teller had learned his 
business in China itself, and he considered 
himself an expert in his art when he re- 
membered a blind fortune-teller who lived 
in China. Blind men there sometimes 
have this business, but they are under a 
disadvantage because they cannot read 
any Chinese book on the subject. There 
are several different ways of fortune-tell- 
ing practiced among the persons of this 
business in China, and blind men have 
their own way. But Ti's city friend had 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

a book on his table which told of a method 
that he pursued. 

Ti went up to the fortune-teller's table. 
He was not doing any business just this 
moment, and he looked at Ti in a neigh- 
borly manner, as an American might 
look at a pleasant, well-behaved small 
boy who came in friendliness to stand and 
look at business. The Chinaman's future 
dinner, a tiny piece of fresh pork, with a 
bit of greens that had a yellow blossom 
like mustard, was in a brown paper cornu- 
copia on the table, just as the fortune- 
teller had bought them of the Chinese 
butcher. His book was on the ink- 
stained red cover of the table, as were his 
writing pencil and a box. 

" Have you gone to school to-day?" he 
asked in Chinese. 

" Yes/' answered Ti. " I go to school. 
Very good school. I read Chinese. I 
read my Chinese book. I read English 
book, too." 

The fortune-teller looked at the little 
boy with approbation. 

" It is very good to read Chinese and to 
have Chinese books," he said. " I have a 
Chinese book." 

He laid his hand on the paper book of 
fortune-telling. 

" You will be a great man," continued 
the fortune-teller to Ti. " Perhaps you 
will some day be a fortune - teller like 
me." 

Ti looked sober. He remembered what 
he had heard at school. " No," said he, 
gravely, " I shall not be a fortune-teller. 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



The teacher woman says that no one can 
tell fortunes truly." 

The man sat up angrily. " The teacher 
woman has an oily mouth and a heart like 
a razor!" he said 
angrily, using a proverb 
of the Chinese people. 
He meant that the 
teacher was a person 
who spoke pleasantly, 
but had a treacherous 
heart. 

" May the Five Em- 
perors catch the 
teacher woman!" he 
continued. 

Ti shrank back. He 
had not supposed the 
man would be angry. 
The " Five Emperors " 
are certain five heathen 
gods that are believed 
by the Chinese to have 
power over pestilence, 
cholera, and so on. To 
say, " May the Five 
Emperors catch you!" 
is a Chinese maledic- 
tion; therefore Ti 
did not like to have the man use it in 
speaking of the teacher. 

The fortune - teller sat and scowled. 
Presently a customer engaged his atten- 
tion. The customer paid his fee and 
went away. After this the man was more 
pleasant and talked, telling Ti of the for- 
tune-tellers in China. 



59 

There came another customer. Ti 
looked at him. Then he wanted to run, 
for who was this second customer but the 
man who had been the Ho kiin of the fan 




The second customer was the Ho Mn. 

fan game to which his uncle had taken 
him on the evening when the police made 
their raid. 

Ti shrank back, but the Ho kun did not 
seem to recognize him. The child stood 
there, not daring to run lest he should 
draw to himself the attention of this 
dreaded person. 



60 TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 

The Ho kun wanted the fortune-teller lucky day for the Ho kun. 



to discover whether the twenty-fifth day 
of the month would be a lucky day for 
him to do something. What the some- 
thing was, Ti did not understand. The 
Ho kun was beginning to explain about 
it, when the fortune-teller suddenly 
caught him by the sleeve of his " shorn " 
(blouse) and hurriedly said something 
warning but unintelligible to Ti. 

The Ho kun evidently took the warn- 
ing, whatever it was. Then the fortune- 
teller proceeded to open his box of small, 
folded papers. Inside each folded paper 
was written a Chinese character. The 
fortune-teller told the Ho kun to choose 
two papers. This he proceeded to do at 
random, one at a time. Then the fortune- 
teller took the two chosen papers, opened 
them, and saw what the Chinese charac- 
ters were. Now Chinese characters are 
made up of different parts. The fortune- 
teller, according to the rules that he 
usually followed, divided the two chosen 
characters into their separate, distinct 
parts. Afterwards he asked the Ho kun 
some questions in so low a tone that Ti, 
who stood at one side, did not understand. 
He was not trying to understand, anyhow. 
His one great anxiety was that the dread- 
ful Ho kun should go away. 

The fortune-teller, by some adroit 
strokes of his writing pencil, made some 
new words out of the parts of the Chinese 
characters, and then gave his opinion. It 
was that the twenty-fifth day of the 
present Chinese month was a most un- 



Days that are 
lucky for one person are not always lucky 
for another, according to Chinese belief, 
but the twenty-fifth day of the present 
month would be the unluckiest kind of a 
day for the Ho kun to do what he in- 
tended to do. The fortune-teller em- 
phatically charged him to put off doing it 
till the fifth day of the next month. That 
would be a lucky day for him. 

Ti heard so much, but he did not un- 
derstand, any more than before, what the 
Ho ktin's undertaking was. 

"Do it the fifth day of next month I" 
charged the fortune-teller again and 
again; and the Ho kun, duly impressed, 
promised, paid his money and went away. 

The fortune-teller looked at Ti. For 
an instant the little boy thought that he 
was almost sorry about something. 

"You like me tell your fortune?" in- 
quired he. 

Ti shook his head and smiled. 

" Good-by," he said in English; and 
he hurried away across the street to the 
safety of his uncle's store. 

He did not know that the fortune- 
teller stood and watched him cross the 
street and then muttered, " The fifth day 
of the next month will be lucky for the 
Ho ktin!" 

What the Ho kun had come to consult 
the fortune-teller about was this: Ti's 
uncle, through his gambling and through 
borrowing, had become greatly in debt to 
the Ho kun, so much in debt as to almost 
equal the value of his store. The T'an 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

kvin and the Ho kun, finding that he ried. Ti was not in school. 

made no payments, knew enough of 

American customs to resolve to put an 

attachment on the little store. TVs 

uncle had realty lost everything. Yet the 

Ho kun was enough of a Chinaman to 

want to consult a fortune-teller about 

which day would be the fortunate one on 

which to attach the store. As Ti had 

been present, the fortune - teller had 

warned the Ho kun not to explain aloud 

what he intended to do. 

Ti went home, ignorant that the future 
plans of the Ho kiin would affect his fu- 
ture. And the fortune-teller stood and 
looked, and muttered in Chinese again to 
himself, "The fifth day of the next 
month will be a lucky day for the Ho 
kun!" 

But the fortune-teller had a plan of his 
own, and it was because of this hastily- 
conceived plan to help Ti's folks a little, 
that he had charged the Ho kun again 
and again that the twenty-fifth day was 
unlucky. The twenty-fifth day of the 
present month would be to-morrow, but 
the fifth day of the next month would 
give a little time for the fortune-teller's 
plan. 

Ti was now so large that for some time 
he had been going to the American 
teacher's school and returning home again 
daily, without the teacher being obliged 
to go and come with him. He knew the 
way and felt quite safe. 

But the fifth day of the next Chinese 
month the teacher looked very much wor- 



61 

He had not 
been there the day before, either, which 
was Monday. She had not seen him since 
Friday in school. 

" I will go around that way just as soon 
as school is over to-day," she thought 
anxiously. " There must be something 
the matter. I meant to have gone last 
night, as he wasn't at school yesterday. 
But I had so much to do." 

Immediately after school she went to 
Ti's home. She was startled when she 
went in. The door at the head of the out- 
side stairway had been unfastened, and 
after her customary knock she opened 
the door as usual. But the room was 
empty. !STo one was visible to tell what 
had happened. 

"Why, I wonder if they've moved?" 
said the teacher to herself. 

A new, forbidding - looking woman 
lifted a red curtain that hung before the 
doorway of a room, and the teacher ap- 
pealed to this stranger. 

"Where have the folks gone?" she 
asked in Chinese. " The little boy gone ? 
All gone?" 

The woman only stared at her and did 
not answer. She repeated her question, 
but the woman did not return a word. 

" Perhaps I can find out down in the 
store," thought the teacher. 

She went down the outside stairs and 
around to the front of what had been Ti's 
uncle's store. There she was disturbed 
to see new faces. Ti and his uncle and 
aunt were not there. A Chinaman with a 



62 TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

hard face scowled at her from behind the 
counter. 

"Where is Ti? Where have they all 
gone?" she asked anxiously. 

The Chinaman shook his head sullenly. 

" Don't you know?" she asked. 

The Chinaman shook his head and 
scowled harder. He was the man who 
had been Ho kun in the fan fan game in 
the gambling cellar, but of course the 
teacher did not know this. 

"Have they moved?" she asked. 

" They all go 'way! Never come back 
any more!" was all the Ho kun would say. 

The troubled woman turned and went 
out of the store. The instant she ap- 
peared the boy Yun, the son of the Chi- 
nese newspaper man across the street, 
came running over toward her. 

" Teacher woman," asked Yun eagerly, 
"you like know where Ti gone?" 

"Yes," answered the teacher quickly. 
" Where is he gone ? What's happened ?" 

" Ti's uncle gamble, gamble all the 
time," explained Yun in English. " Get 
gleat debt to Ho kun man! Ti's uncle 
take Ti and his aunt and go 'way off to 
China on China steamer this morning! 
Never come back to Cal'forn'a any more! 
They go on China steamer this morning!" 

" Gone to China!" exclaimed the 
startled teacher. 

She knew a steamer had really started 
for China that morning. It was steamer 
day. 

Yun nodded. " They go China this 



morning!" he said. 



For an instant the teacher was over- 
whelmed. Then she recollected that no 
Chinaman who was in debt could go to 
China without first paying his creditors, 
and Yun had just said that Ti's uncle 
had been in debt to the Ho kiin. 

"How could Ti's uncle go if he owed 
the Ho kun man?" asked the teacher. 
" Every steamer day the ship agent stands 
one side the gang-plank to take steamer 
tickets, and, the Six Chinese Companies' 
man stands the other side to take each 
Chinaman's release ticket, showing he 
has paid his obligations to the company 
that represents his province in Canton. 
Ti's uncle couldn't leave America without 
that release ticket. The Six Companies 
wouldn't allow it. He must have paid his 
debts to the Ho kun man somehow, or he 
cant have gone." 

Yun stood silent. The teacher looked 
gravely at him. 

" Oh," she said suddenly, " I see now 
how it was! Those Chinamen who have 
the store now must have bought it, and so 
Ti's uncle had money to pay his debts; 
or else the Chinamen took the store in- 
stead of his paying them. Perhaps that 
was the way he got out of debt and could 
go to China." 

" Yes," said Yun readily, " they go to 
China this morning on steamer." 

The teacher had no doubt of the story 
now. Ti's folks had gone to China. And 
the little boy was gone! 

Her face was pale and startled as she 
stood there. She did not know this was 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



63 



a lie that the Chinese fortune-teller, who 
had a grudge against her because she did 
not approve of his business, had sent Yun 
to tell. The fortune-teller knew the 
teacher would feel badly over Ti's going 
so far away as China. Yun did not really 
knew where he had gone. He suspected 
he was telling a lie, but he thought it was 
well to obey the fortune-teller, and, 
brought up in a heathen home, he had 
little scruple about telling the teacher 
a lie. 

" They must have kept it a secret from 
Ti until the very last that he and they 
were going to China," said the teacher. 
" He could not have known it, or he 
would have told me in school last week. 
This is Tuesday, and he was not at school 
yesterday. I have not seen him since 
Friday. If he had known then that he 
was going away, he would have said good- 
by to me. Gone to China! Poor little 
Ti!" 

She did not doubt the story, for she had 
seen other scholars vanish as summarily 
from her school. But she had so hoped 
to keep Ti! She felt stunned, over- 
whelmed, as she turned away. She did 
not know that the fortune - teller was 
watching. Yun went away. 

" Probably Ti's uncle was afraid I 
would say some last words about Jesus 
that the child would remember," she 
thought. "The uncle and aunt didn't 
want me to know he was going." 

The teacher looked blankly at the Chi- 
nese red papers and great lanterns. She 



saw afar the table of the apparently 
oblivious fortune-teller. Then she did 
not see anything clearly, because of the 
rush of tears that blinded her. It seemed 
as if the great sea of heathenism had 
risen and swept away bright, loving, stu- 
dious Ti. She remembered the joss-house 
of the " Queen of Heaven " on the next 
street. But oh, with all the heathenism 
of this Chinese quarter, how much darker 
was China itself! And Ti was on the way 
there, perhaps never again to hear a word 
about Christ! What would become of 
him, little Ti, who had grown so dear to 
his teachers and had seemed to open his 
heart so readily to Christianity? Here, 
Christians could penetrate Chinatown. 
In China there might not be a Christian 
or a missionary that he could see! 

" Oh, my little scholar! My little Ti!" 
she cried. " I can't help you any more! 
I'm afraid I sha'n't ever see you again! 
Oh, God keep you, in the world of hea- 
thenism! God help you not to forget 
Jesus! Oh, dear little Ti, God keep 
you!" 

"With sorrowful heart the teacher went 
away. She could only ask God to care for 
Ti wherever he was. 

The teacher, however, had been greatly 
deceived as to Ti's present whereabouts. 
He was not going to China at all. What 
had happened really was this: The even- 
ing of the day on which the fortune-teller 
had been consulted by the Ho kun as to 
the luckiness or unluckiness of the 
twenty-fifth day for putting an attach- 



64 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



ment on Ti's uncle's store, the fortune- 
teller ate his supper as usual, and then in 
the darkness secretly wended his way to 
see Ti's uncle. He did not usually tell 
the secrets intrusted to him hy customers, 
but he liked Ti and was not unwilling to 
help his folks a little. 

Ti's uncle was ignorant of the fact that 
any attachment was to be placed on his 
store. This evening the fortune-teller 
told him just what the Ho kiin intended 
to do on the fifth of next month. The 
fortune-teller could not help him by let- 
ting him have money, but he suggested 
that if there was anything special that he 
would like to save before that attachment 
was put on his store, he would do well to 
save it before the fifth of next month. 

Ti's uncle was greatly excited over the 
bad news. He did not know how he 
could get any money to pay the Ho kun, 
for the amount needed was large. The 
fortune-teller said that the reason he had 
told the Ho kun to wait till the fifth of 
next month was because he knew that 
was the day a steamer sailed for China, 
and he also knew that the junk from the 
Chinese fishing village up the bay would 
probably come down to the city the third 
or fourth day of the month, as there were 
one or two Chinese from the fishing-ham- 
let who wanted to go to China the fifth 
day. He suggested to the uncle that the 
best way would be to send his wife and Ti 
back to the fishing village by the junk, 
and they could carry whatever valuables 
could be saved from the store. The main 



contents of the store could not be saved 
without a wagon's coming, and the Chi- 
nese neighbors' finding out what was go- 
ing on, and the Ho kun's probably being 
told and his rushing in and defeating 
the plan. The Ho kun would not prob- 
ably wait for the fifth day in that case. 
So the store must go. But, if he did not 
suspect anything, he would not put on the 
attachment till the fifth day of the 
month, and meantime Ti's uncle might 
secretly save something. 

"You keep still! Don't tell the 
neighbors you are going! Don't tell 
Ti!" warned the fortune-teller in Chinese. 
" He might tell his teacher! You keep 
still! When junk comes, you have things 
ready and you go quick at night when no- 
body see!" 

This plan was carried out. Ti's uncle 
watched for the junk. The third evening 
of the next month, greatly excited, he 
hurried back from the wharves to tell his 
folks the junk had come. That was the 
first Ti knew about the plan of moving. 
None of the neighbors knew. Secretly 
in the dark Ti's uncle hurried such things 
to the junk as he could carry. He re- 
turned, hurried Ah Cheng and the little 
boy out in the evening darkness, and hast- 
ened to the wharves. It was a breathless 
hour, for he knew he was saving some 
things that the Ho kun expected to put 
an attachment upon. 

Ah Cheng and Ti and the bundles 
reached the junk, and Ti's uncle breathed 
more freely. He stayed on board that 



TI: A STOKY OF CHINATOWN. 65 

The junk, having delivered at the had no intention of telling the teacher 



night 

city the passengers who expected to go to 
China the fifth, would now sail back to 
the Chinese fishing - hamlet the next 
morning, the morning of the fourth, not 
waiting till the China steamer sailed. 

Ti's uncle would not go to the fishing- 
hamlet. He would stay behind in the 
city. He hoped to go to China in some 
way, after he had given up the store to 
satisfy his creditors. He could not go by 
this steamer, for he must earn his passage 
money yet, and satisfy two other creditors 
for small sums before he could go. But 
he had been wanting to go to see his old 
father and mother, and now would leave 
Ti and Ah Cheng with the other uncle, 
Lum Lee, and his folks at the Chinese 
fishing village. 

In this hurried, breathless going, there 
had been no time for Ti to send any 
good-by to his teacher at the mission 
school. He felt very badly. 

" Teacher woman not know where I 
go/' the boy told his uncle. " She feel 
bad." 

At last, when his uncle was leaving the 
junk, early in the morning just before it 
sailed, Ti begged so hard that the uncle 
would tell the teacher where he had 
gone and why he could never come 
to her school again, that the uncle prom- 
ised. 

"Yes," he said, "I tell the teacher 
woman. I tell her to-day." 

So the junk sailed away on its course 
and the uncle went back to' his store. He 



an} r thing. He had only promised in 
order to make Ti stop begging. Neither 
had he any intention of telling any one 
where his wife and Ti had gone. As 
soon as the Ho kun and the T'an kun 
put the attachment on the store the fifth 
day of the month, Ti's uncle vanished. 
The T'an kun and the Ho kun took pos- 
session, and the teacher received no in- 
formation from the uncle about the little 
boy's destination. 

In the succeeding days the teacher 
fully believed that Ti had gone to China. 
As a matter of fact, not even his uncle 
had gone to China yet, for he was par- 
tially engaged in opium smoking, to help 
him forget the mortifying fact of his hav- 
ing lost his store, and he was also partly 
occupied with plans for earning his pass- 
age money to China. He did not go near 
his former store, so the teacher never met 
him. 

CHAPTER XL 

TI IS TESTED. 

NE day, a while after Ti's go- 
ing away, the teacher was 
startled. With some other 
Christian workers she was 
out on an errand of mercy 
among the tenements of Chinatown. 
They had not found the Chinese person 
they sought. They went further, down 
a long, narrow alley, on either side of 
which were fish and vegetable stalls. The 




66 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



sidewalks were so narrow that the little 
party walked in the center of the alley, on 
the cobblestones. They opened one door 
of the alley, and, as they shut that door 
behind them, they passed into utter dark- 
ness inside of a building. They found 
their way up one flight of stairs. At the 
landing, all was darkness. They groped 
to the right and went up another flight of 
dark stairs. They stumbled through 
narrow black passages. Here and there 
were little rooms like cupboards. In 
these tiny rooms on shelves Chinamen 
lay. 

"We've found an opium joint!" whis- 
pered one of the men of the party. 

It was so. In the blackness of the lit- 
tle cupboard-like rooms the only light 
would be that coming from a wick burn- 
ing in a tumbler and illuminating the 
smoker's face. By the light could be seen 
the nut-oil lamp (the dong) for cooking 
the opium, the bamboo pipe (jin ten), 
and the needle for manipulating the 
opium (ah pin yin). 

The visitors, intent on the object of 
their search, hurried past these closet- 
like rooms. They stumbled in the dark, 
wishing they had thought to bring a lan- 
tern, for though it was daylight in the 
alley, it was like night here. 

At length the party found a woman 
who assured them that the one they 
searched for could surely be found in an- 
other house in another part of China- 
town. The informant seemed honest, 
and there was nothing to be done but for 



them to retrace their steps through the 
dark hallways. 

They had reached the back of the 
building. " Look down," murmured one 
of the party. Below, in the narrow yard 
between this building and the next, there 
arose a cloud of steam. " It's the opium 
factory!" 

The very yard below was somewhat 
dim, for besides its narrowness and its 
situation between the two tenements, it 
was boarded at either end, and, above, the 
roofs nearly formed a covering. The 
party looked down as well as they could, 
and perceived, in the narrow yard, a place 
built of cement, in which were furnaces 
for charcoal. There was the sight of the 
steam of boiling opium and a glimpse 
now and then of the charcoal's red glow. 
Two scantily-dressed Chinese coolies were 
kneading opium, as the water evaporated, 
in brass dishes that were over the fur- 
naces. The coolies were strong men, for 
opium - kneading requires considerable 
strength. 

" The opium becomes more and more 
stiff, so that it's harder to knead," softly 
said one of the party. " At the right 
time those coolies will use brass flatteners 
to form the opium into a thick cake at 
the bottom of each dish. Then the 
dishes will be turned upside down over 
the embers, and the men will lift the 
cakes every minute, and peel off the skin 
that has cooked. So each opium pancake 
will make fourteen or fifteen thinner 
ones." 



The party did not linger, but stumbled 
back through corridors and black stair- 
Mays, trying to find the way to the alley 
once more. They began to go by other 
little cupboards with shelves covered with 
matting. Lying, getting ready to smoke, 
on one shelf was a young Chinaman, who 
seemed to be somewhat ashamed, and ex- 
plained aloud to the party of strangers 



67 
Has he gone to 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

"Where has Ti gone? 
China?" 

There was no reply. The sallow, half- 
narcotized face stood out of the black- 
ness, but there was no look of recognition, 
no apparent realization that he had been 
addressed. The opium had done its 
work. 

" He is too stupid to understand," said 



that he only smoked " one li gee of opium , one of the party in English. 



a day." One li gee is twenty cents' 
worth. 

They hurried on in the blackness. 
Suddenly, as they passed one of the black 
little cupboards, a Chinese face dimly lit 
by the light from the dong shone from 
the darkness. The teacher gave a little 
cry and caught the arm of the next one 
in her party. 

"Wait a minute! Wait!" she ex- 
claimed. " I must speak to this opium 
smoker. I think I know him. I want 
to ask him a question. I thought he 
was in China. I thought he had taken 
his folks there." 

The party stopped. They knew the 
teacher must have some particular reason 
for her request. Out of the blackness of 
the weird little smoking-room, the yellow 
light from the dong made the Chinese 
head the more striking as one looked at 
it, the only visible thing amid the heavy 
shadows. 

The Chinaman had not appeared to 
notice the party at all. 

" You are Ti's uncle, are you not?" 
asked the teacher clearly in Chinese. 



The man's head, resting on a wooden 
pillow, did not stir. The teacher knew, 
however, as she looked, that she was not 
mistaken. It was Ti's uncle who lay 
there. 

"Where is Ti?" she repeated more> 
loudly in Chinese. " I am the teacher 
woman. You remember me! I was at 
your house when little Hop died. I have 
been there many times. Where is Ti? 
Tell me, where is Ti now?" 

The yellow face, surrounded by the 
heavy black shadows, did not open its lips 
to reply. 

It seemed to the teacher as if she could 
not give up without any answer. She 
was startled and excited over finding Ti's 
uncle. Could it be possible that the little 
boy was still somewhere in this great 
city? If only she could find and help 
him! 

"Just let me try once more," she 
begged her party in English. She turned 
to Ti's uncle again, and took up Chinese 
speech. 

" Won't you tell me where Ti is ?" she 
begged. " Only tell me this one thing. 



68 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 

Tell me, yes or no! 



Is he in this city? 
Is he here?" 

She waited. There was no response. 
It was not the silence of refusal, but of 
stupidity. 

" It's too bad, but you can't make him 
comprehend your question/' said one of 
the party; and the teacher knew that it 
was so. 

There was no use in waiting any longer. 
The little company went on, carrying the 
remembrance of the vision of that one 
yellow face in the blackness. The visitors 
groped out of the passage-ways through 
the door at last into the light of the alley 
again. 

And this was the teacher's first clew to 
Ti's whereabouts. It was a very slender 
clew. She knew no more than before 
where the uncle had sent the little boy. 
Certainly he was not in that opium fac- 
tory, she thought. 

But the fact that she had seen Ti's 
uncle made the teacher, for the first time, 
doubt the story that Yun had told about 
Ti's going to China. She had supposed 
that he told the truth. Now she began to 
look for her little pupil daily, as she went 
about her busy work of visiting the Chi- 
nese women and children in their homes. 
She believed that Ah Cheng and Ti must 
be in the city, too, as long as the uncle 
was. 

" I think Ti will keep on praying as we 
taught him," she told herself. " And yet, 
I wish I could be quite sure!" 

Ah! it is so hard sometimes, after sow- 



ing the seed patiently, to have no oppor- 
tunity to care for and cultivate it! 

The teacher watched and sought in vain 
for some time, without gaining the slight- 
est trace of her little pupil. Then once 
more she thought she had found a slight 
clew. 

It was on the departure of a steamer for 
China. The teacher had gone to the 
wharves to see a Christian Chinese family 
and say good-by to them as they started 
for the old home in China again. 

It was almost time for the vessel to sail. 
The wharf was full of people, white and 
Chinese. Coolies hurried over the gang- 
plank. Some Chinese carried their be- 
longings wrapped in matting; some had 
baskets or sheets or boxes. All was bustle 
and hurry. There was a laugh at one 
Chinaman, who had dropped his box on 
the wharf. The box had broken open, 
and his goods had flown hither and 
thither. He hastily gathered his belong- 
ings. He had clothing, and dried herbs, 
and a box of huge pills. Hurriedly he 
crammed the things into his box again, 
and fled toward the gang - plank of the 
steamer, which was almost ready to lift. 

The teacher had just come off the 
steamer, where she had been bidding the 
Christian Chinese family God-speed. As 
she stepped off the gang - plank to the 
wharf, the Chinaman who had so hastily 
gathered his belongings rushed past her. 
She had only one glimpse of his face as 
he ran by, but she knew him. It was 
Ti's uncle. 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



69 



With a cry she sprang back, but it was ways saved TVs red paper with its " new 
too late. The Chinaman ran on the ves- words." 

sel. The gang-plank lifted. The water In the one street Chinese men and 
was covered with bits of papers, being women were as busy as they had been two 
prayers thrown by Chinese on the dock years before, when Ti had gone away, 
for the safe return home of the voyagers. 
She called across the water, but Ti's uncle 
did not look behind him. He plunged in- 
side the vessel, out of sight. 

" Oh," she cried, " can Ti be on board, , 
too, and his aunt? They were not with 
the uncle ! Is he going to China alone, or 
are they on board, too? If only I could 
have seen my little pupil! If only I had 
known, when -I was on board, Fd have 
hunted the vessel over! I did look, but 
I didn't expect he was there. Is he?" 

The steamer swung around. The 
teacher looked eagerly at the crowd on the 
decks. People were waving farewell. The 
width of water between the wharf and the 
steamer grew greater. She drew a long 
breath. 

" Oh, my Ti!" she said, as she watched 
the steamer, " may God keep you, even 
though you go where there is no one to 
teach you any more about Christ!" 




Away from the great city, in the little 
fishing-hamlet far up the bay, the old red 
paper still showed its message to the Chi- 
nese fisher-people as they passed along the 
narrow, crooked street. But none of the 
passers-by paid any attention to it. There 
were various red or yellow, or white papers 
about the doors of other hovels, but when 
the papers were renewed, See Yow had al- 



See Yow. 

Now, out on the rocks, a boy was turn- 
ing some fish. By and by he had the nu- 
merous little fish all turned, and he left 
the rocks and went away, through the 
narrow street, past the little houses, to the 
place where old See Yow used to live. 
See Yow was ill, now, and he had been 
put into a sort of rude shed back of the 



70 TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

small hut he and half a dozen other 
Chinamen had occupied. Poor old See 
Yow! He had not been able to walk to 
the shrine for a long time. 

To-day he felt so feeble that he did not 
open his eyes when the boy entered the 
shed. Ti - - for the boy was Ti — went 
out again, and cooked some rice, and 
brought it to the old man. But he could 
take little. 

The boy sat down at his side. See Yow 
lay still for a little while. Presently he 
stirred and said in Chinese, " Tell me the 
new words." 

And Ti, who knew he meant the words 
on the red paper outside the door of his 
former hut, repeated the " new words " in 
Chinese: "Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest." 

" Tell me again what the teacher said 
about the ' new words/ " 

Ti straightened, and before he began to 
speak, thought hard as to all the teacher 
had tried to make him understand. 

" She said," he began, " that when 
Jesus lived here on earth, folks who were 
in trouble came to him and he helped 
them; and that when they are tired or sick 
now, they can tell Jesus about it, and he 
will help them to bear trouble and sick- 
ness, 'cause he is never far away, but close 
beside us." 

" But," said See Yow, interrupting, 
" how can one come to him, as the new 
words say?" 

" When we love folks, we trust them. 



And though we cannot see this Jesus, he 
is with us. He has helped me, just little 
Ti. He makes my heart glad, for I know 
he loves me — and I love him, too." This 
last the boy said very softly. 

There was silence. Old See Yow 
breathed heavily, but he was awake. 

Then Ti began to sing. It was a song 
with Chinese words, but it told how Jesus 
had come down from heaven to show peo- 
ple how much he loved them and wanted 
to help them, and that he would take 
them to live with him in heaven, if only 
they would believe on him. It told how 
he even died to show his love. It was a 
song that Ti had learned in the little mis- 
sion school in the city. It had very easy 
words and its meaning was very plain, so 
that a little child might understand. Oh, 
teacher in that mission school in the city, 
you knew not what you did when you 
taught Ti that song and the meaning of 
the "new words"! You knew no more 
than did the other teacher who years be- 
fore had sent the red paper to Ti at the 
fishing-hamlet, as to what would be the 
result of your act. But the Lord of the 
harvest takes care of seed sown for him. 

By and by Ti left Sea Yow, to attend to 
some more fish. 

The little boy met his aunt, Ah Cheng, 
outside in the street, carrying some salt 
for the shrimp-curing. Ti and Ah Cheng 
had to work quite hard, now, for Uncle 
Lum Lee always expected anybody who 
lived with his family to work. Uncle 
Lum Lee was very fond of money; he and 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



his wife worked hard, and saved all they 
could. Ah Cheng and Ti were perfectly 
willing to work, however, and as Ah 
Cheng's opium-smoking, gambling hus- 
band was not present to make the days 
wretched with his crossness and his blows, 
they were not very unhappy, though often 
very tired. In one thing Ah Cheng could 
already see that there was going to be 
trouble, however. Ti was neglecting an- 
cestral worship and did not bow to the 
gods. She felt worried, though she had 
not said anything about it to Uncle Lum 
Lee's folks. Ah Cheng had not learned 
to believe in Jesus as Ti did, and Uncle 
Lum Lee's wife was a firm believer in the 
gods. 

Uncle Lum Lee prized the shrines of 
the fishing village as being places where, 
according to his thinking, he could dis- 
cover which were the luckiest days to go 
fishing. Still Ti, young as he was, noticed 
that the shrines did not seem always to 
give correct information, even on that 
subject. He did not dare, however, to say 
anything about it. He was glad to have 
been let alone, thus far, and not have the 
" Jesus book " discovered and taken from 
him. Though he could not read the 
Jesus book perfectly, yet he could read it 
somewhat, and he prized it. Uncle Lum 
Lee's folks did not know that he pos- 
sessed it. 

Ti smiled at his aunt now, and hurried 
away to attend to his fish. The aunt went 
on with her salt. 

Back in the little shed, old See Yow, 



71 

weak and sick, lay still. His- withered, 
wrinkled face was very thin. 

By and by, with an effort, the old man 
raised himself on his elbow. He looked 
cautiously around the interior of the shed, 
as if to make sure that no one but himself 
was in the little room. Then he lay back 
and shut his eyes, as he had seen Ti do 
when he prayed. 

"Jesus," murmured old See Yow al- 
most inaudibly in Chinese, " Jesus Christ, 
I am only a poor old fisherman Chinaman. 
I have heard the new words. Jesus Christ, 
I never heard them when I was young. I 
have heard the new words now when I am 
old, a very poor old fisherman Chinaman. 
Jesus Christ, make the center of my heart 
understand the new words before I die!" 

Slowly, over and over, with pauses for 
breath, the old man repeated his prayer. 

Out by the long tables for fish-drying, 
back of the hamlet, Ti worked. Once he 
looked up, and the sunlight glittering far 
on the bay struck his eyes, and the boy 
thought of his father who had been 
drowned out in that stretch of waters. 
The lad's face grew very wistful as he 
worked. He did so wish that he could 
have told his father what the teacher 
taught at the mission school, and could 
have sung to his father that song about 
Jesus loving everyone. But just as he 
was thinking this, L T ncle Lum Lee came 
by. He was in a surly mood. 

"Work harder!" he said sharply to Ti 
in Chinese, though the boy was already 
working as faithfully as anybody could. 



72 TI: A STOBT OF CHINATOWN. 

Ti redoubled his efforts, while his uncle 
frowned. 

Uncle Lum Lee was becoming very sus- 
picious of Ti. From various things he 
had observed in him, he was coming to 
believe that the boy had had altogether 
too much teaching in that Christian mis- 
sion school in the city. This money-lov- 
ing Chinaman thoroughly despised the 
unbusiness-like way in which Ah Cheng's 
.husband had lost his store, and he also 
thought that allowing Ti to go so long — 
two years — to the teacher of the " Jesus 
doctrine" was another wrong thing in 
Ah Cheng's husband. 

Uncle Lum Lee had not been very dili- 
gent himself about worshiping the gods 
sometimes, but he despised Christians. 
He knew the Chinese saying, sometimes 
written over temple doors in China, 
<f Worship the gods as if they were pres- 
ent." Sometimes he had doubted if they 
were present, but he had remembered the 
common saying of China, " It is better to 
believe that the gods exist than to believe 
that they do not exist." So he had gone 
on carelessly performing the usual rites; 
but now, roused by the thought of what 
he suspected in Ti, his zeal for the Chi- 
nese gods was reviving daily. Angry in- 
deed would he have been if he had known 
that a few moments before this Ti had 
been singing that little mission song about 
Jesus to old See Yow in the shed. But 
everybody had been away, busy about the 
fish and the shrimp-curing, and nobody 
but old See Yow had heard the song. 



" Go, put salt on the shrimps!" said 
Uncle Lum Lee now, giving Ti a rough 
push; and the boy went obediently. 

All continued well until evening. Ti, 
having finished his work, was going to his 
uncle's hut to eat supper. On the way he 
met his uncle. 

" Go worship Poo Saat!" said Uncle 
Lum Lee sternly. 

Ti did not answer. There was some- 
thing in his uncle's face that frightened 
the boy. He hesitated, trembling. His 
uncle gave him a push and went on, but 
Ti knew he was watched. 

CHAPTER XII. 

TI IS NOT HAPPY, v 

T WAS the first time that Ti had 
been commanded to worship 
the gods. He turned and went 
toward the building where the 
sails and tackle belonging to 
the junk and other vessels of the fishing- 
hamlet were kept. Going into the build- 
ing, he was face to face with the idol Poo 
Saat, revered by his uncle. Incense sticks 
were there. Ti stood in the middle of the 
sail-room, and looked at the idol. Then 
he looked at the incense sticks. Should 
he set up new ones and burn them? What 
was that verse the teacher had taught him 
in the little school in the city? 

"Little children, keep yourselves from 
idols." 

There was another verse: " We know 
that there is none other God but one." 




How many times Ti had recited those 
verses with the other Chinese boys in the 
teacher woman's school! But oh, the 
words had not meant to him then nearly 
as much as they meant at this moment! 
What would Uncle Lum Lee do if he did 
not worship? 

" Little children, keep yourselves from 
idols." 

Ti stood and looked at the idol Poo 
Saat. Then he sat down on a coil of 
rope. 

" I will not put up incense sticks to 
Poo Saat," thought he. "I will not wor- 
ship him. If my uncle does not see me 
for a little while, he will think I have 
been worshiping Poo Saat. I will not 
worship, but I will sit here a little while. 
How can my uncle know?" 

Then he began to feel troubled. Was 
it right for a boy who believed in Jesus 
to let any one think he worshiped Poo 
Saat? 

Suddenly he started. There was the 
sound of feet coming to the sail-room. He 
jumped up as Uncle Lum Lee came into 
the room. The uncle looked at Ti, and 
the little boy trembled, so stern was that 
look. 

" Why do you not worship?" asked Lum 
Lee in Chinese. 

His tone was a very angry one. He 
took some incense sticks and ordered Ti 
to place them before the idol. 

The boy took the incense sticks. He 
stepped toward Poo Saat. " I must do 
it!" thought he. "My uncle will strike 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 73 

He will strike me very hard. He 



me. 



!» 



is so angry 

Then suddenly there swept over him 
the thought of Jesus. He seemed to see 
the teacher's face as she had pleaded with 
him that time in the school-room. " Oh, 
Ti, I want you to love Jesus while you are 
a little boy. Won't you?" He could see 
her as she had told him of Christ's love 
for him. And now he, Ti, was going to 
put these incense sticks before Poo Saat, 
and bow down and worship! He was go- 
ing to do this because he was afraid. 
Afraid! — and Jesus loved him! Jesus 
died for him, poor, sinful Ti! 

The great tears welled up in the boy's 
eyes till he could hardly see the idol. 
With a great sob, he threw the incense 
sticks from him. He flung himself down 
on a coil of rope and sobbed aloud. He 
could not worship Poo Saat! 

" Little children, keep yourselves from 
idols," he sobbed in Chinese. 

For an instant Uncle Lum Lee stood 
and looked at him. Then he sprang at 
the sobbing, frightened boy, caught him 
and shook him, cuffing him hither and 
thither around the sail-room. Ti begged 
and protested, but blow followed blow. 

At length Lum Lee forced him into a 
bowed posture before the idol. - Lighting 
the incense sticks, the uncle placed them 
himself before Poo Saat. Then he struck 
Ti again and, leaving him, went away. 

The idol Poo Saat looked on immov- 
able. The fumes of the incense sticks 
filled the room. The twilight deepened 



74 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



into dark as the boy lay there sobbing un- 
der his breath. He crept away from the 
idol, and, sore and trembling, lay down on 
an old sail. Poo Saat could hardly be 
distinguished in the darkness that envel- 
oped the room. 

Ti felt very lonely. " I want the teacher 
woman!" he sobbed. " She told me, 
' Little children, keep yourselves from 
idols/ " 

He was afraid to leave the sail-room 
and go back to the tiny, crowded house 
where he lived with TIncle Lum Lee and 
his wife and children, and his aunt, the 
wife of the uncle who had gone to China. 
Ti knew that his other aunt, Lum Lee's 
wife, would not sympathize with him at 
all. It was only yesterday that he had 
heard her praying to the kitchen god, say- 
ing, " kitchen god! I pray you pre- 
serve my two pigs, that this year they may 
grow fat and large, so as to be sold for a 
great many cash! And then I will come 
and worship you!" And even the other 
aunt with whom Ti had lived in the city, 
might tell him he had done wrong not to 
obey his Uncle Lum Lee. 

The boy had had no supper and he did 
not know whether anybody had carried 
old See Yow any rice. He cried and 
sobbed over and over, " I want my Jesus 
teacher!" 

He thought he had done right, but oh, 
it had been so hard! He wanted some- 
body to help him. The teacher woman 
would be sorry. She would tell him what 
to do if she were here. How could he live 



with his uncle and not worship idols, if he 
must be whipped this way? Did the 
Jesus book mean that a Chinese boy must 
never worship idols — never, though he 
was struck and whipped? 

" I want my Jesus teacher!" wept Ti. 

Then, as he sobbed on from sheer ner- 
vousness and pain, there came to the suf- 
fering child the thought that Jesus was 
here, if the teacher woman was not. He 
lifted his tear - stained face and looked 
toward the idol Poo Saat. The incense 
sticks had burned out. Ti gazed at the 
almost invisible idol, and the thought 
grew in him that Jesus was really here, 
and that he need not cry so very long and 
unhappily. Then he began to pray. He 
prayed in his own words, as the teacher 
had taught him, and the comfort that the 
little lonely boy needed came into his 
heart as he told Jesus everything. 

The sail-room grew darker. The idol 
Poo Saat became invisible, and tired, 
bruised Ti fell asleep on the old sail. 

By and by he woke. There was a soft 
step in the dark. A figure crept to his 
side. 

" Eat !" whispered somebody, and he 
knew it was his aunt, Ah Cheng. 

Ti ate his rice out of the little bowl in 
the dark. His aunt said she had fed See 
Yow, but the old man could eat almost 
nothing. He had seemed very happy, 
though, she said, but she did not know 
why. 

Ti finished his rice, and his aunt crept 
silently away through the dark and left 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



75 



the tired boy to finish his night's sleep in 
the sail-room, guarded not by the idol Poo 
Saat, but by the One of whom the teacher 
had taught him. 

In the gray of the early morning, while 
the fog yet rested heavily upon the bay, 
Ti came out of the sail-house and hurried 
to See Yow's shed. Early as it was, the 
old man lay awake upon his hard board 
covered with a piece of matting. In his 
great joy he had not slept much this 
night. He had found what his soul 
sought. He looked at his little friend 
and smiled as the boy came into the shed. 

Ti came to the old man's side and sat 
down. He had come for comfort, but he 
was unprepared for the look of joy on See 
Yow's face. 

"Jesus Christ has made the center of 
my heart understand the new words!" said 
the sick man in Chinese faintly but joy- 
fully. " I am only an old fisherman 
Chinaman, but I know the new words! I 
never heard them when I was young. I 
have heard them when I am old, a very 
poor old fisherman Chinaman. Jesus 
loves me. I have come to him. The cen- 
ter of my heart is very glad." 

There was such a look on his face as Ti 
had never seen there before. It made him 
think of the teacher woman in the city. 

" The center of my heart understands 
the new words!" repeated See Yow 
faintly. "Jesus Christ loves me, Jesus 
Christ loves me — me,, a very poor, old 
fisherman Chinaman!" 

Ti had meant to tell his old friend of 



the blows Uncle Lum Lee had given and 
the harsh words he had spoken. He was 
sore from some of the blows still, but the 
wonder of seeing the joy on the sick man's 
face kept the boy from speaking of his 
own experiences. Suddenly he found the 
tears rolling down his face. He was so 
glad for See Yow. 

"I am glad for you! I am glad!" 
sobbed he; and the old Chinaman put his 
hand on the boy's, and the two were 
silent for a time. 

Ti could not tell what he felt. He 
knew that See Yow had become a " Jesus 
man." Oh, how glad, how happy a thing 
that was! The child did not say a word 
about his own troubles. He had almost 
forgotten for the moment that he had 
any, in the wonder and gladness of the 
thought that See Yow was a "Jesus 
man." 

"When it grew quite light, Ti went away 
to his uncle's hut. Lum Lee had already 
gone out in a boat with some other China- 
men, and his wife let Ti have some break- 
fast, though she spoke harshly to him, for 
she was a woman of violent temper. Ti 
carried See Yow some food, and then be- 
gan work. 

But never from that day did Lum Lee 
seem to like his nephew. He was cross 
and abusive to the boy, till, as months 
went by, he even wished that his other 
uncle might come back from China to 
take him away from the harsh words and 
blows. He was so willing a worker that 
Uncle Lum Lee could not complain of 



76 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN, 



laziness, but he found all the fault he 
could in every other way. 

Aunt Ah Cheng was very sorry. She 
shielded Ti all she was able, but she told 
him she wished he would worship the 
gods. Ah Cheng was really afraid not to 
worship certain gods herself. Under 
more favorable circumstances she might 
have been a Christian. But she had not 
had as much good teaching as Ti, and 
though he and she sometimes went to old 
See Yow's shed and talked a little of the 
"Jesus doctrine," yet she would after- 
wards assist Lum Lee's wife in worshiping 
the "kitchen god," and she still wor- 
shiped before her old picture of the god- 
dess of mercy, Kun Yam. 

Only a few of the Chinamen went to 
see See Yow while he was sick. To those 
who did come he spoke now of the " new 
words," but the Chinese looked at him 
and said he had an evil spirit. One day 
the old man died with the prayer on his 
lips, " Jesus Christ, make all the Chinese 
understand the new words." 

Then one of the Chinamen who lived 
with others in the hut that See Yow had 
formerly occupied, went out in a panic 
and scraped down the old red paper that 
had been pasted there so long ago, the 
paper that contained the "new words." 
Generally Chinese look with respect on 
paper printed with Chinese characters, 
but this was different. 

" It is a bad paper," said the other 
Chinamen. " It brings evil spirits! See 
what it did to See Yow!" 



So the Chinaman scraped down every 
vestige of the paper, and the wind from 
the bay blew the small red fragments out 
of the narrow street into the fields outside 
the squalid little hamlet. But the red 
paper had done the work whereunto it 
was sent. One soul had come to know 
the reality of the " new words." 

Down in the city the teacher women 
worked and prayed and wept and 
struggled against the heathenism of the 
great Chinese quarter. Sometimes it 
seemed to them as if their hearts would 
break over the wrong and the cruelty they 
saw. They wept that they could do no 
more. They never had seen See Yow. 
They had never even heard of him. They 
would not meet him now, till that day 
when he would come to them in heaven 
and say, " Your work reached even to' me! 
You never saw me, but you taught a little 
Chinese boy, and he told me what the 
' new words ' meant. He told me about 
Jesus." 

But, alas for Ti! As the months went 
by after old See Yow's death, and Uncle 
Lum Lee continued to be so harsh and to 
strike him so many times for not worship- 
ing before the idols, the boy gradually al- 
most ceased to pray to Jesus for help to 
be a true Christian. Whipped and un- 
kindly treated, the little lad lost courage. 
At last he bowed before the idols, he put 
up the incense sticks, he burned paper 
money before the ancestral tablet. At 
first, when he did these things, a very 
unhappy feeling came into his heart, a 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



11 



sense of having grieved Jesus, and he 
went away and cried. His aunt, Ah 
Cheng, found it out, and she said to him: 

" If you and I lived alone you could 
worship Jesus Christ. I would not pre- 
vent it. But now we must live with Uncle 
Lum Lee, and it is foolish thai you should 
let yourself be whipped. Worship the 
idols when he wishes. Then he will not 
strike you so much." 

Alas! The boy listened to these words, 
and he did as Aunt Ah Cheng said. Not 
that he went and bowed before the idols 
of his own accord. He did not do that. 
But whenever Lum Lee said so, Ti went 
and burned incense before Poo Saat, or 
went through any other heathen rite of 
worship that his uncle wished. 

So the months went on. Yet the boy 
was not happy, for at times a voice in his 
heart seemed to say, " Ti, dear Ti, Jesus 
loves you. Will you not be brave for love 
of him?" 

Lum Lee was in the sail-room, before 
the idol Poo Saat, making trial of the 
Ka-pue. The Ka-pue, or wooden divin- 
ing blocks, were in Lum Lee's hands. He 
was seeking, after Chinese method, to ob- 
tain from the idol some expression of its 
will in regard to a business project that he 
wanted to enter upon. A Chinaman from 
another California Chinese fishing-hamlet 
on a bay a great many miles down the 
coast, had offered to exchange his business 
interests there for Lum Lee's here. 

Lum Lee was rather anxious to make 



the exchange. The bargain looked ad- 
vantageous to him, and he believed that 
he would make more money at the other 
fishing - hamlet than he made where he 
now was. But he also believed in consult- 
ing the gods before entering upon any im- 
portant business change, so yesterday he 
had consulted the idol by means of the 
wooden divining blocks, Ka-pue, and the 
blocks had most unfortunately fallen so 
that, according to Chinese interpretation, 
they meant an unfavorable answer. 

" Don't you do it," was what Lum Lee 
thought the blocks said, and he did not 
like such an answer as that. He wanted 
the idol to approve of his new business 
plan, so he thought he would try the Ka- 
pue again. Perhaps the idol would con- 
sent. 

The Ka-pue, or divining blocks, are 
from three to eight inches long, and each 
has a flat and a round side. If the two 
blocks, when thrown, fall with both round 
sides up, the answer is unfavorable. That 
was the way Ka-pue had fallen yesterday. 




K&'pue. 



Fallen with the two curved sides uppermost, meaning 
unfavorable answer. 



Lum Lee hoped they would not fall so 
now. He knelt, and bowed before the 
idol several times while kneeling. Then 
he once again stated his plans, and begged 
for an answer from the idol. Then he 
took the divining blocks and put their 



78 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



two flat surfaces together. "With a cir- 
cular motion he passed the blocks through 
the smoke of the burning incense a few 
times, then reverently threw them up be- 
fore the idol, so that the two blocks would 
fall between the idol and himself. 

The Ka-pue fell on the floor. Lum Lee 
looked. Oh, joy! They had not fallen as 
they did yesterday! Now, one block had 
fallen with its flat side up, and the other 
with its round side up! That meant 




Kd-pue. 

With one block flat side up, and the other round side up, 
meaning affirmative or favorable answer. 



"yes!" The idol had consented! He 
could exchange his business with the 
other Chinaman. 

Satisfied with this answer, and ignoring 
the opposite answer of yesterday, Lum 
Lee was not many days in completing the 
bargain with the Chinaman from the 
southern fishing-hamlet, who, in his turn, 
was persuaded that he could make money 
in Lum Lee's shrimp business. 

The bargain being consummated, Lum 
Lee gathered his possessions and took his 
wife and children and Ti and Ah Cheng 
and sailed on the fishing-hamlet's junk to 
the city. Ah Cheng's husband had been 
gone to China for almost a year now. 
Privately, Lum Lee doubted whether he 
would ever return, since opium smoking 
and gambling were making such a wreck 
of him. He was probably going down 



lower and lower in China, and becoming 
more useless to himself and everybody 
else. But if he ever did return to 
America, he could almost as easily find his 
wife and Ti at one fishing-hamlet as 
at the other. Uncle Lum Lee wanted to 
take Ah Cheng and Ti with him, because 
he had proved their capacity for working, 
and he thought he would be richer with 
two extra pairs of hands to work for him. 
Ah Cheng and Ti had almost nothing to 
say about the moving. 

The junk neared the city. It was the 
first time Ti had been there since his hur- 
ried departure that night almost a year 
ago, for he had not been allowed any city 
trips by his uncle, who wanted the boy to 
work diligently. He hoped that now 
Uncle Lum Lee would allow him to go up 
from the wharves to the Chinese quarter a 
little while, to try to find the teacher 
woman. 

But Lum Lee allowed no such thing. 
He left his folks on board the junk, and 
went to get tickets for the rest of the voy- 
age. For the fishing village to which he 
was transporting himself and his family 
was not isolated like the hamlet where 
they had been living. The new home was 
to be in a Chinese fishing-hamlet between 
two American towns on the southern bay, 
and steamboats and American sailing ves- 
sels went to and fro frequently between 
the city and one of the southern towns. 
So Uncle Lum Lee, who had known what 
day to come to the city, found no diffi- 
culty in buying tickets for his folks on a 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



79 



sailing vessel that was going to start south allow his nephew to go abroad in the city 

that afternoon. streets. 

Leaving the junk to be taken back to The little party waited till sailing time, 

the old Chinese village by the other and the vessel moved away with them out 




Chinese Wayside Stand — Shells for Sale. 



Chinamen who had accompanied the mov- 
ing family down, Ti and Ah Cheng and 
Uncle Lum Lee and his folks and his 
household possessions formed a hasty, al- 
most unobserved little procession across to 
another wharf where was the sailing vessel. 
Once on board that, Lum Lee would not 



through the Golden Gate to the blue 
Pacific. After considerable sailing, they 
came at last to the bay they sought, and 
across its blue water Ti could see a long 
wharf reaching out from an American 
town. At the wharf the ship stopped. 
There were queer old Mexican buildings 



80 TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 

in the town, and there were American and 
Spanish and Chinese faces. Beyond the 
town, stretching toward the direction they 
were to go, Ti could see a great many pine 
trees. Uncle Lum Lee hired a Chinese 
laundry wagon to transport his possessions 
to the Chinese village, and the whole 
party rode with the things. 

Ti felt homesick; He did not know 
anything about the new home to which he 
was going, but he looked at Aunt Ah 
Cheng's sad face, and he knew that Uncle 
Lum Lee would be as harsh and exacting 
in the new home as in the old. 

He looked out at the tall pines, as the 
wagon passed on, and he heard blue-jays 
scream from the tree tops. There were 
American wagons on the road, coming and 
going, for the two American bay towns 
were only a couple of miles apart, and 
houses straggled along the way. The 
farther town was a great resort for sum- 
mer visitors, and the Chinaman who waa 
driving told Lum Lee that many of those 
x\merican visitors bought sea shells of the 
Chinese. On one road tlje Chinese had a 
wayside stand for selling shells to the 
tourists who were at this season riding 
hither and thither. Many of the Ameri- 
cans — some of whom were visitors from 
Eastern States — frequently walked over 
the fields, by the path near the rocky 
shore, to the Chinese hamlet and pur- 
chased shells there. These visitors often 
admired the abalone shells, and bought 
"sets" of them of different sizes. Also 
there was the trade of going around sell- 



ing fish to the many Americans who had 
homes in the two towns between which 
the Chinese hamlet was situated. 

All this did the laundry wagon China- 
man, as he drove, tell to Uncle Lum Lee 
and his folks. Lum Lee's avaricious eyes 
glittered with satisfaction. Surely he 
would make much money in this place. 
How foolish that other Chinaman had 
been to exchange business with him! 
How much better living in this place 
would be than living away from all 
money - possessing Americans at the 
shrimp-curing hamlet, as he had hereto- 
fore done! How well that the divining 
blocks fell propitiously for the plan of 
moving! Ah, Lum Lee did not realize 
that there is One mightier than idols. 
Little did he dream what this removal 
was to mean for Ti. 




CHAPTER XIII. 

AH CHENG CHOOSES. 

OWN toward the rocks beside 
the bay, Ti could see the 
great waves come splashing 
high, white with foam, and 
there was a fresh wind. The 
wagon turned from the road and went 
down a lane and across a field, and there, 
on the edge of the blue bay, was the Chi- 
nese fishing-hamlet. Fish were drying on 
rough wooden tables back of the hamlet. 
There was a jargon of Chinese voices. 
Chinese boats were beached on the sandy 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 81 

shore next the rocks. Two tables of around, although there were still many 
different kinds of shells, mainly great aba- rows of wooden - framed, canvas - covered 

tents among the pines for those people 
who preferred to live in tents instead of 
houses. American artists, ladies and 
gentlemen, often came over from the 
settlement and sat sketching the Chi- 
nese houses and boats and children. 

Ti saw one Chinaman 
who had just come in 
from making a tour, 
hunting abalone shells 
around some of the coasts 
of this peninsula. The 
Chinaman carried an 





There were rows of tents. 

lone shells with their beautiful, iridescent 
interiors, and strings of various 
sized sea-urchin shells, stood beside 
the street. One stand had the 
English sign, " Shell for Sale," evi- 
dently written by some Chinaman. 

Across the fields, beyond the Chi- 
nese hamlet, not a very long dis- 
tance, began the other American 
town, among the pines. It had 
originally been only a camping 
place, but now it had grown to be a 

town with streets and churches and busi- iron rod to knock abalones off the rocks, 
ness houses and a hotel. Many people had and he told Ti he had been away 
built houses aud lived here the year around by the light-house, at a certain 



The Light-house. 



82 



point situated far beyond where the boy 
had yet seen. 

Lum Lee hurried his family to the 
house in the loft of which they were to 
live. The house was a very small one, 
and the loft consisted of only two little 
rooms, but into them were crowded the 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

out in boats to gather kelp. Some of the 
numerous children of the village were 
already beginning to be traders in shells 
with the American visitors, and demanded 
" fi ? cent " for a string of small sea-urchin 
shells. 

Ti was needed for various things — to 




The Chinese Fishing Hamlet. 



household belongings, the god shelf was 
set up, and, leaving Ti and Ah Cheng and 
his wife and children there, Uncle Lum 
Lee went away to attend to his business 
interests. 

The houses of the hamlet were all 
small, forming the crowded homes of 
many Chinese. The fields spread widely 
along the shore. There was room there, 
but the houses were all huddled together, 
according to Chinese ideas of crowding. 

Ti soon found that this was a busy place 
for him. Almost everybody was busy. 
Young Chinese girls carried on their 
backs little baby brothers or sisters, while 
attending to the fish, and the women went 



go fishing with L T ncle Lum Lee and the 
other men, to go over to the American 
settlement among the pines, selling fish. 
Moreover, he had to learn to go with iron 
rod, searching along the seashore rocks for 
miles, hunting for abalones. Some after- 
noons he spent sifting the white beach 
sand through his fingers, hunting for the 
tiny " rice shells " that look like grains of 
rice and can be sold to Americans. Above 
all, he must attend to the fish-drying and 
the turning of the multitudes of tiny fish 
on the rocks and drying tables. Moreover, 
he could gather pine cones in the woods, 
and sell sacks of them to the campers for 
fuel. All these ways of earning money 



11: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



83 



for Uncle Lnm Lee were shown Ti during ers' school up in the city!" exclaimed sur- 
the first few days here. prised, excited Ti to Hip Lon, and then 

The first Sunday came, and with it a he ran to find Aunt Ah Cheng, and 
piece of news that startled Ti. After a beg her to let him go to the teacher 
person had gone by the village shrine, and women's school. Little Hip Lon looked 
had passed along the crooked street by the after Ti, as he ran away to find his aunt, 
houses, and had turned to the right, there 
stood a house the use of which the boy 
had never thought to inquire, during the 
few days he had lived here. On Sunday, ^ 
however, two women came through the 
village. Ti supposed they were Ameri- 
cans who had perhaps come to see the 
hamlet, or to buy shells, for he knew that 
all Americans did not refrain from buy- 
ing things on Sunday. Presently he 
noticed that the two women were stopping 
here and there at the houses, gathering 
little Chinese children. 

" Where you go?" asked Ti of one little 
Chinese boy, Hip Lon. 

" Go to Jesus teacher women's school 
to-day," said Hip Lon. " You go?" 

Astonished Ti could hardly believe it 
true. Could it be possible that there 
were Jesus teacher women here in this 
Chinese fishing-hamlet? He questioned astonished that he should be so excited 
Hip Lon and discovered that these were over the news of the school, 
indeed Jesus teachers, and that they lived Aunt Ah Cheng consented to Ti's ex- 
in a house up among the pines over the cited appeal, though she knew Uncle Lum. 




Hip Lon's small sister. 



hill, and that they always came down to 
the fishing-hamlet Sundays and held a 
little Sunday-school for the Chinese chil- 



Lee would be angry if he discovered it. 

So Ti went with Hip Lon and his small 
sister. Neither of these teachers was the 



dren in the house near the edge of the loved teacher from the city, of course, 

hamlet, the house of which he had not but they noticed Ti immediately when he 

thought to inquire the use. came to school. They noticed that he 

" Oh, I go once to Chinese Jesus teach- knew one of the songs sung there, and by 



84 



questioning him found that he had once 
been a mission scholar in the city. 

Thus began TVs acquaintance with the 
teachers. Much surprised were they to 
discover that he had a " Jesus book " and 
that he remembered many Bible texts he 
had learned in the city. But there was 
one thing the teachers could not know, 
and that was how, now, in the hamlet 
Sunday-school, the songs about Christ and 
the teachers' words smote the boy's heart. 
How he had meant once to be true to 
Jesus, and how sadly he felt he had 
failed! How many times he had bowed 
to idols! How there came back to Ti 
now words that his dear, kind city teacher 
had said to him! " How good she was to 
me!" he thought repentantly, "and how 
grieved she would be if she knew that I 
bowed to idols and burned incense to 
them!" 

Sunday after Sunday, as Ti slipped into 
the hamlet Sunday-school, the struggle in 
his heart grew. Sometimes his uncle 
would not let him go to the school. He 
would not have allowed the boy to go at 
all, if it had not been that during the 
week the teachers sometimes bought fish 
of Lum Lee. Then he would, the next 
Sunday, scowlingly permit Ti to go to 
Sunday-school, for fear of offending a fish- 
customer. 

But whether Ti went to Sunday-school 
or not, the voice that spoke to the boy's 
heart would be heard, and he was un- 
happy. Ah, how unhappy is a heart that 
has loved Jesus and then wanders away 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

from him! Ti knew that if he began 



again to refuse to worship idols he would 
be whipped and cuffed and cursed by 
Uncle Lum Lee and his wife, as before. 
He dreaded meeting such treatment 
again. So, daily, he dissembled. But, 
oh, how unhappy he felt when certain 
songs were sung in the teachers' school! 
How he had to struggle to keep the tears 
back! It almost seemed as if he could 
hear his loved city teacher say, " Oh, Ti, 
I want you to love Jesus while you are a 
little boy!" Ah, the good Shepherd was 
calling his little lamb! Wandering Ti 
was not forgotten. 

So surprised and interested were the 
teachers in discovering that Ti had once 
been a mission pupil in the city, that they 
found out from him the name of his 
teacher there. Then, after some writing 
hither and thither, the teachers of the 
hamlet found out the address of his 
former city teacher. 

One evening, one of the hamlet teachers 
sent word to Ti asking him to come up to 
their house over the hill among the pines. 
The boy thought that perhaps some fish 
was wanted, or the teachers needed some 
errand done. So he went to their house. 
He was very greatly surprised to find that 
one of them had a letter from his former 
teacher in the city. The hamlet teacher, 
on discovering her address, had written 
and told her they had found one of her 
former pupils. 

Ah, how glad a letter did the city 
teacher send back! She had thought that 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



85 



Ti was in China, since she had seen his 
uncle going on the China steamer. She 
had pictured the boy surrounded by hea- 
thenism. And now to find that he was 
still in this country, and that he had been 
guided to a hamlet where there were other 
Christian workers to teach him! Ah, 
surely God's hand was in Lum Lee's mov- 
ing to this place. 



"Jesus will never love me again, I am 
bad boy so long!" wept Ti over and over. 
"Oh, I am bad! I am bad!" 

The tears came into the teacher's eyes. 
She knew how very hard it often is for 
Chinese to become Christians, since they 
must meet with so much reviling and per- 
haps cruelty from relatives. 

" Ti," she said as she bent over the sob- 



Tell Ti," wrote the city teacher,, bing boy beside her, " Ti, Jesus does for- 



" how very glad I am to hear of him! 
Tell him I have prayed for him every day 
since he went away. Tell him to be sure 
to keep on praying to Jesus. He will 
help him if he asks him." And then the 
letter closed with these words: " Dear 
Ti, do try to be a real Christian!" 

Ti listened intently as the teacher read. 
But there was a look on his face that she 
did not understand. The boy was silent 
a moment after the letter was finished. 
The tears began to roll down his face. 
Suddenly the remorse that had over- 
whelmed him as he heard the loving 
w r ords, grew too strong for concealment. 
He dropped, sobbing, on his knees at the 
teacher's feet. 

" I used to love Jesus in the city," he 
sobbed. " Now I am bad boy so long, 
Jesus will never love me again." 

Sobbing, he told his story — how he 
had gone from the city to the other fish- 
ing-hamlet to live, how he had been 
beaten by Uncle Lum Lee for not wor- 
shiping Poo Saat, how at last he had 
yielded and now for many months had 
worshiped Chinese idols. 



give you. He loves you. He is sorry for 
you and is sorry to have you worship 
idols, for they can do you no good. But 
he wants you to know that he still loves 
you, and will help you to be brave if you 
turn to him." 

Long and tenderly the teacher talked 
with the repentant boy. She prayed with 
him, and Ti prayed for himself. It was 
broken prayer, but it came from a heart 
repentant as Peter's for his denial. And 
when Ti w^ent away homeward toward the 
Chinese fishing-hamlet he was happy in 
the thought that Jesus loved him, and the 
knowledge of this great love made him 
feel strong. He looked up at the evening 
sky and said, not as he so often had, " I 
am bad boy so long Jesus never love me 
again," but instead, " Dear Jesus, I don't 
care what happens, I will never worship 
idols again, for I know you love me and 
will help me." 

It did not take Lum Lee and his wife 
long to perceive the change in Ti. He 
neither worshiped the gods nor offered 
mock paper money before his father's 



86 TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

tablet. Uncle Lum Lee struck the little 
boy, and his wife reviled him as one most 
despised by the Chinese — a son who is 
ungrateful to his dead father. "You 
have burned no paper money before your 
father's tablet for two weeks!" she said 
angrily one day. " Your father's spirit is 
poor! How can he have any money when 
you do not burn it? His spirit is poor! 
He is hungry! But you do not care! You 
are wicked! You do not care for your 
father now he is dead!" 

Ti did not answer. Once, such an ac- 
cusation would almost have broken his 
heart, for he still loved and missed his 
father. 

His aunt struck him some half dozen 
sharp blows on the side of his head, and 
passed on, her face lowering. How could 
she know that the boy, his face smarting 
from the blows, was praying silently for 
help? 

Many days were very hard for Ti, now. 
Lum Lee's wife told the other Chinese 
about him, and they treated him severely. 
Hip Lon's mother said sternly in Chinese 
to him, " Once when I was in China, my 
father went to the house of a high man- 
darin. When my father came back, he 
told us children what he had seen there. 
He saw a picture of an old woman. It 
meant the mandarin's grandmother. Al- 
ways, night and day, the mandarin had 
large, red candles burning before the pic- 
ture. Also he burned incense. His sons 
and daughters came and knocked heads 
to the picture. You are poor, and you 



cannot offer great red candles always to 
your father, but you can burn paper 
money for him! You are a bad son to ill- 
treat your father when he is dead!" 

Ti listened, but he did not answer. Yet 
sometimes, when the days were very hard, 
and he was tired with much work, and 
Lum Lee struck him and reviled him as a 
" Jesus boy," Ti hid himself in the field 
and cried. But he prayed, too. 

The teachers guessed how it was with 
their little pupil. They said a comfort- 
ing, strengthening word to him when they 
met him during the week. Uncle Lum 
Lee would not let him go to the Sunday- 
school any more, even if the teachers did 
not buy fish of him. Therefore it was 
many weeks before Ti knew something 
that was coming to pass. It was this: 

His aunt, Ah Cheng, watched the boy 
very closely now. She knew his troubles, 
though she said nothing. Living in the 
same crowded loft with Lum Lee's folks, 
Ah Cheng saw that Ti would rather be 
struck than worship the gods. Some- 
times she guessed that he prayed in the 
night secretly to the " true God." She 
disliked to have the little lad struck and 
abused so much by Lum Lee and his wife, 
and as she watched him through the 
months, his influence over her deepened. 
Not that he was a perfect Christian. He 
was far from that. There were days when 
he felt impatient and did wrong, but Ah 
Cheng could see that he tried to do right. 

Long ago, when Ti had been faithful 
and had borne blows for Jesus' sake, Ah 



Tl: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



87 



Cheng was touched. If he had remained 
faithful she might have been different 
now. As it was, his conduct began to 
have great influence over her. 

One Sunday afternoon the teachers 
were surprised to see Ah Cheng slip into 
their Sunday-school and sit at one side, 
listening. Ti was not there, and his aunt 
seemed afraid that it would be known she 
had come, for she glanced apprehensively 
toward the door now and then. She soon 
slipped out, but after that she came every 
Sunday for a few minutes. Gradually she 
stayed longer. 

Ah Cheng never said anything about 
why she came or what she heard there. 
She only sat and listened with the chil- 
dren. Sometimes there was so longing a 
look in her eyes that the teachers wanted 
to speak to her, but she seemed to wish to 
avoid notice, and they were afraid of 
causing her to stay away, if they said any- 
thing to her. So she slipped quietly in 
and out, and when she was there the only 
notice the teachers took of her presence 
was to have the little ones repeat after 
them the plainest and simplest truths in 
their lesson, carefully explaining them- 
selves, as the lesson went on. For the 
teachers knew that the Chinese woman 
needed to have the truth presented to her 
as plainly as to a little child, and that the 
things the children spoke or sang might 
reach her heart when their own words 
would not. But the teachers were not 
quite prepared for what followed. 

One day, when all the Chinese fisher 



people were busy, off fishing, or drying 
fish outside the hamlet, or doing the same 
thing on the beach, or attending to the 
many tasks always necessary, Aunt Ah 
Cheng went swiftly up to the loft where 
she and Lum Lee's folks lived. Nobody 
was there. She had thought nobody 
would be there this time of day. Lum 
Lee's wife was off turning fish on the 
rocks. 

There was a strange look on Ah Cheng's 
face. Her hands were trembling. She 
took down her long-worshiped picture of 
the goddess of mercy, Kun Yam. Hurry- 
ing, trembling, she gathered whatever she 
owned that pertained to idol-worship — 
the incense sticks, the mock paper money 
— but she did not touch anything that 
belonged to Lum Lee's god shelf or idol- 
worship. 

Hiding in her dress these various things 
of her own, with the picture of the god- 
dess of mercy, Ah Cheng went trem- 
blingly down the outside stairs to a 
near-by shed. This shed, almost next to 
Lum Lee's home, was used by a number of 
families as a cooking place. There was a 
sort of open fireplace, and in this, now, 
were some hot coals, for it was not long 
since eating time. 

No one beside Ah Cheng was in the 
shed. Hastily she stirred the live coals, 
and laid on them the old picture of the 
goddess of mercy. The picture flamed up 
in an instant. Ah Cheng laid the other 
things in the flames. She waited, 
trembling all over. She hid her face. 



88 

No one came. When she looked up, the 
picture of Kun Yam, before whom Ah 
Cheng had been used to worship, was re- 
duced to ashes. There was no trace of 
the other things save a few ends of incense 
sticks, and these Ah Cheng pushed 
further on the coals. A slight blaze rose, 
and the last trace of the things of which 
she had made the fire was gone. Only the 
live coals waited, glowing still. 

Ah Cheng covered the coals with ashes. 
She rose and caught hold of the doorway 
to steady herself. Then she went away 
again to the fish-curing. 

The evening of that day, when Ti came 
home to the loft, he found uproar there. 
Lum Lee's wife "was full of fury. 

" Will you be a Jesus doctrine woman?" 
she screamed at Ah Cheng. 

"Yes," said Ah Cheng, quietly but 
firmly. 

Then Lum Lee's wife burst into a storm 
of Chinese reviling. And when a furious 
Chinese woman reviles, she can do it with 
the turbulence of a torrent. 

But it was useless. Ah Cheng had 
chosen. She was ignorant of many 
things, but she had chosen Christ. It was 
not a lightly made resolve. She had known 
what the consequences would be. For 
a long time she had been silently watch- 
ing, thinking, wavering. Now she had 
burned her gods, and she stood firmly. 
She had found peace in Christ. There 
was no great, overwhelming emotion in 
Ah Cheng's case, but she had trust and 
rest and peace in her heart, for Jesus was 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



with her. She had weighed the matter 
carefully, and deliberately she had taken 
Christ for her Helper, though she knew 
the choice involved persecution. 




CHAPTER XIV. 

"GOD BLESS YOU, TI." 

.UM LEE'S wife was fairly be- 
side herself with rage. She 
drove Ti and Ah Cheng 
out of the house that night, 
declaring that Christians 
who burned the gods should not stay un- 
der the same roof with her. 

As all the other little houses of the 
hamlet were crowded, Ah Cheng and Ti 
were forced to sleep that night under some 
empty fish-drying tables at one side of the 
hamlet. The next day, however, Lum 
Lee's wife permitted them to come back 
to the loft to live. Lum Lee knew they 
were good workers, and he did not want 
them to stray from the hamlet back to the 
city. 

But his wife continued her vitupera- 
tions, and made the succeeding days as 
uncomfortable as she could. All the 
Chinese in the hamlet heard from her 
what Ab Cheng had done in burning the 
picture of the goddess of mercy. Some of 
the more superstitious women regarded 
the act with horror, for though the 
teachers of the Mission school had tried 
to do what they could in instructing the 
Chinese people of the hamlet about Chris- 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



89 



tianity, yet the main influence of the in- 
struction had been on the little Chinese 
children. Only here and there was one 
among the women or the men who might 
possibly be silently thinking and weigh- 
ing the subject, even as Ah Cheng had 
done, but who lacked courage to come 
out openly in favor of the "Jesus doc- 
trine." 

Several of the more superstitious 
women of the hamlet openly prophesied 
that some evil spirit would do harm to Ah 
Cheng. But the weeks passed, and no 
harm came. Ah Cheng labored faith- 
fully at the fish-curing, and finally Lum 
Lee's wife settled into a sullen acceptance 
of the fact of her Christianity. The 
home loft was a very uncomfortable place, 
though, usually, for Ah Cheng and Ti. 
Two believers in the " Jesus doctrine " 
were a constant invitation, Lum Lee's 
wife believed, to evil spirits to enter the 
loft and do harm. Yet there were so 
many Chinese in this hamlet, in compari- 
son to the small number of houses, that 
every house was crowded, Chinese fashion, 
and there was no other place for the two 
to stay, had any other family felt dis- 
posed to offer them a home. 

Some five or six months of this uncom- 
fortable manner of living went by. Ti 
and Ah Cheng tried to be faithful. So 
long a time had elapsed that the neighbors 
had ceased to say evil would come because 
of the burning of the goddess of mercy's 
picture. Other things engaged the 
neighbors' attention, though many of 



the people did not favor the Jesus doc- 
trine. 

One night, about eleven o'clock, when 
the Chinese hamlet was still, Ti was 
awakened by a loud crackling sound and 
a sense of suffocation. The loft was full 
of dense smoke. He heard his Aunt Ah 
Cheng crying to him, " Ti! Ti!" 

There were cries of frightened people 
in the street below. Half a dozen of the 
little Chinese houses were on fire. 

" Ti !" screamed Ah Cheng in Chinese. 
"Hurry! Hurry!" 

Lum Lee's wife was shrieking. She 
snatched up one of her children. Ti 
caught up the youngest child. 

" Quick! Quick!" screamed Ah Cheng. 

Struggling through the strangling 
smoke, they pushed their way out the door 
to the stairway. The steps leading down 
to the street were on fire! The street 
was full of running, screaming, frightened 
Chinese women and men, who did not 
know what to do. Ti and Ah Cheng and 
Lum Lee's folks climbed over the already 
burning roof of their loft. They dropped 
to the upper outside top of a flight of 
steps of another house that was also on 
fire, and escaped to the street. 

Running across the fields came Ameri- 
can men, rushing to help. " Chinatown's 
afire!" they shouted to one another. Into 
the midst of the wailing, shrieking Chi- 
nese women ran the white helpers. White 
men darted here and there, helped by 
some Chinese, finding old boilers, empty 
oil cans, old buckets. Men ran to the 



90 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 



beach for sea-water. The air was full of 
cinders. White men and Chinamen 
climbed here and there, throwing the 
water over roofs and walls. The fire had 
probably caught from the cook shed near 
Uncle Lum Lee's house, the shed in 
which several families were wont to cook, 
and where some one probably had care- 
lessly left too much fire early in the 
evening. 

On the edge of the hamlet, some 
American women and small boys who had 
run down from the nearest houses of the 
town among the pines, stood and watched 
the fire. For a little time, it looked as 
though a good part of the hamlet of dry, 
tinder-like houses would be swept away, 
but the sea-water and the exertions of the 
workers prevailed against the flames at 
last. They died down. Only half a 
dozen of the little houses had been con- 
sumed. 

" It's a good thing none of you lost 
your lives!'' said one of the white men 
cheerfully to the crowd of frightened Chi- 
nese. " The fire must have started from 
that cook shed you say was here, and 
burned each way, taking houses on both 
sides. Somebody left live coals uncovered 
last night, and there was a wind, you 
know." 

Now, among the company of frightened 
women was one who, from murmurs of 
other Chinese, caught the white man's 
meaning, and she knew that she had prob- 
ably been the last person who cooked in 
the shed the previous evening. Conse- 



quently she knew she was very likely the 
one who had been careless about leaving 
the fire so that it had crept to the dry, 
wooden side of the rickety shed. The 
woman did not know whether anybody 
knew she had been the last person in the 
cook shed. She was very much afraid of 
being accused of being guilty for the fire, 
for some of the Chinese who had had 
their household goods burned were in an 
angry mood. 

But, in her fright, this woman suddenly 
thought of something. If only she could 
make Lum Lee's wife think that this fire 
had come as a punishment for Ah Cheng's 
having burned the goddess of mercy's 
picture! Then suspicion might be turned 
away from herself, if anybody had begun 
to try to remember who had cooked last 
in the shed. 

The woman edged her way to Lum 
Lee's wife and said something. In an in- 
stant the latter's superstitious fears were 
aroused, angry as she was over the loss of 
household things. The fire indeed must 
have come from the insulted goddess of 
mercy! Had not Ah Cheng burned her 
picture? 

With a cry of hatred, Lum Lee's wife 
rushed toward Ah Cheng. 

" The curse of Kun Yam made the fire 
come!" she screamed in Chinese. " It is 
the curse of the goddess of mercy! Ah 
Cheng burned the picture of Kun Yam in 
the fire! Now Kun Yam has sent the fire 
to Imrn Ah Cheng, and it has burned all 
our things, too! Ah Cheng is a Jesus be- 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 

liever! Ah Cheng brought the fire on 
us!" 

With clenched fist the excited woman 
struck at Ah Cheng, who put up both 
hands to ward off the blow. 

" I was not in the cook shed at all last 
evening," protested frightened Ah Cheng 
in Chinese. " I did not have a fire 
there!" 

But it was useless to protest, for Lum 
Lee's wife did not listen. She had not 
ceased to scream, " It is the curse of Kun 
Yam! Ah Cheng is a Jesus doctrine 



91 



woman! She makes Kun Yam send fire 
to burn us! She burned Kun Yam's pic- 
ture in the fire, and Kun Yam sends fire 
back on usj" 

The cry of Lum Lee's wife found an 
answer in some of the more superstitious 
hearts of her ignorant Chinese neighbors 
whose houses had been burned. These 
neighbors began to mutter angrily. Ti 
stood by his aunt, who vainly protested 
again that she had not been in the cook 
shed the previous evening. 

" Ah Cheng brings fire on us!" 
screamed Lum Lee's wife. 

"What is all this trouble?" asked the 
stern voice of an American man, who did 
not understand Chinese. 

Ah Cheng was trembling. The neigh- 
bors were beginning to look angrily at 
her, as they continued muttering among 
themselves. But a quick form slipped 
through the crowd. • 

" Ah Cheng," said one of the teachers 
quietly, " you and Ti come home with me 



to-night. This hamlet was so crowded, 
before, that now, with half a dozen houses 
burned, there will hardly be room for all 
to sleep. You and Ti come with me." 

The teacher hurried Ah Cheng and Ti 
away from the hamlet. The fire being 
over, American people were returning 
homeward across the fields. 

"Don't cry, Ah Cheng," said the 
teacher kindly in broken Chinese and 
English, as she heard a stifled sob from 
the poor frightened creature while they 
hastened on across the fields towards the 
teachers' house over the hill among the 
pines. " It was not your fault that the 
fire came. You had not been in the shed. 
Kun Yam did not send the fire, either. 
Some other Chinese woman was careless. 
Make your aunt understand what I say, 
Ti. You can talk better Chinese than I 
can. She's too frightened just now to un- 
derstand much English." 

So Ti repeated to his aunt in Chinese 
what the teacher had said. 

" Oh, Jesus teacher woman!" sobbed Ah 
Cheng in Chinese, " Chinese all hate me 
now! All say I make the goddess of 
mercy send fire, because I burn Kun Yam! 
All Chinese hate me now! But I had to 
burn Kun Yam's picture, because Jesus 
book tells me not to pray to make-believe 
gods any more. Now Chinese all hate 
me! Ti and I have no home any more!" 

The teacher's heart was full of loving 
sympathy. She remembered One who 
had not where to lay his head. She re- 
membered the words, " Blessed are ye, 



92 



TI: A STORY OF CHINATOWN. 



when men shall revile you, and persecute 
you, and shall say all manner of evil 
against you falsely, for my sake." 

" Ah Cheng," she said gently, " do not 
be afraid. Jesus will take care of you. 
I do not think all the Chinese will hate 
you. It is only Lum Lee's wife who tries 
to make the other women think the fire 
came from the idol's anger." 

But in her heart the teacher said, "I 
hope Ah Cheng will not have to go back 
to live with Lum Lee's wife any more 
and be struck and reviled! It is not as 
if this were a Chinese fishing-hamlet away 
on the coast, far from any American 
Christians. Here I can find work for her 
in some white Christian family." 

The teacher knew that in the American 
town among the pines there were many 
comfortable Christian American families 
who lived there all the year around, and 
in some of them she was sure she could 
find a place where Ah Cheng might earn 
her living by washing and ironing, and 
another place where Ti could work, and 
they would be encouraged to keep on be- 
lieving in Jesus and being true to him. 

So the two stayed at the teachers' house 
that night. The next day, the teacher 
saw Uncle Lum Lee, who sullenly said he 
did not want Ah Cheng and Ti to come 
back and live with his family. He would 
have been glad to have their work, but his 
wife had declared she would not have 
Christians in the house again, lest they 
should bring more trouble on her from 
the goddess of mercy. His wife's talk 



had roused Lum Lee's superstitious fears, 
too, lest the gods should not prosper his 
money-getting. 

"Clistians make Chinese, joss mad!" 
said he angrily. "Joss send fire! No 
want Clistians! Make me lose money, if 
joss get mad!" 

The teachers were thankful at heart 
that Lum Lee did not want Ah Cheng and 
Ti around any more. Being fearful, how- 
ever, that he might change his mind after 
his superstitious fears had subsided, they 
thought best not to let Ah Cheng and Ti 
find places to work among the American 
Christians of the town among the pines, 
after all. 

" It will be better for them at some 
Christian mission house in the city," de- 
cided the teachers, and they speedily 
wrote up to Ti's former city-mission 
teacher, asking her to come and take Ti 
and his aunt back with her to some 
Christian mission house for Chinese in the 
city. 

The city teacher came speedily. Quickly 
were arrangements made, and one day Ti 
and Ah Cheng bade good-by to the kind 
teachers of the hamlet, and went with the 
city-mission teacher on board a vessel that 
was about to sail from the southern bay 
north toward the city once more. 

The city teacher was thankful, as she 
stood beside Ti on the vessel after it had 
set sail, and knew that now the boy and 
his aunt would have a Christian home 
where they would no longer be struck and 
reviled and threatened because they did 



not worship the gods 
and work. A Christian Chinese shoe- 
maker had promised to teach him shoe- 
making in the city. 

The teacher looked down at the boyish 
face beside her. 

" Are you not glad to go back to the 
city, Ti?" she said. 

The boy looked up with a quick smile. 
* Yes/' he said, " I velly glad!" 

Then he looked far across the water 
again, and the gladness faded from his 
face. The teacher looked where his gaze 
seemed fixed. She saw, far across the 
blue bay, the two American towns, and 
there between them a dark line on the 
bay shore. The line was the Chinese 
hamlet. 

" What is it, Ti?" she asked, seeing the 
soberness of the child's gaze. 

A wave of emotion swept over Ti's face. 
" Teacher," he said earnestly, his voice 
trembling with feeling, " I got two little 
Chinese cousin in that place, Lum Lee's 
little boy and girl. I 'fraid they never 
love Jesus! Teacher, I think of the other 
Chinese fishing place where I did live. 
Nobody there tell Chinese 'bout Jesus! 



TI: A STOBY OF CHINATOWN. 

Ti could study it makes me feel bad! 



93 

They don't know 
'bout Jesus! Teacher, some day when I 
grow big, I go everywhere! I go tell all 
little Chinese girls and boys 'bout Jesus! 
Oh, teacher, I so glad you teach me 'bout 
Jesus when I was little!" 

The boy choked. A great tear rolled 
down his cheek. 

The teacher's own eyes were full. Too 
well did she know the stories of many of 
the hapless little ones who " don't know 
'bout Jesus." 

" God bless you, Ti," said she gently. 
" Tell them! Tell all the poor little Chi- 
nese children you can about Jesus. There 
are so few to tell them!" 

Ti went away, and the teacher stood 
and looked afar across the water. She 
thought of the multitude of little Chinese 
children born and brought up in Christian 
America, and yet without Christian teach- 
ing. " They ought to be reached. They 
ought to be taught," she said to herself. 
" The poor little Chinese children! Often 
the parents won't believe us teachers 
when we tell them of Jesus and his love, 
but sometimes they will believe their chil- 
dren when they carry home the gospel 



Nobody came, all the time I live there, we have taught them. Oh, if only there 

to tell Chinese 'bout Jesus! Teacher, were more teachers to tell the story to the 

great many little Chinese boys and girls poor little Chinese children! Dear Lord, 

in all Cal'forn'a! They don't know 'bout send forth more laborers into this, thine 

Jesus! Nobody teach them! Oh, teacher, harvest!" 



THE END. 



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